lilii Seipios Gardens 

;| and Other Poems ^ 



o am. lie 



a^leatine Cole 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
<^nap Oopyi-ight No. 



)'?6| 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



In Scipio's Gardens 

and Other Poems 



Samuel Valentine Cole 



0. p. PUTNAn^S SONS 

New York and London 

Zbc Iknickcrbocker press 

1901 



97031 



Librwiry of Cong 
^^^., COPJES RECEJVED 

DEC 311900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY 

ae<iv«red to 

OHOER DIVISION 

JAN 4 1901 



76 '5 r^^ 



Copyright, 1900 

BY 

SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE 



Ube Itnicftecbocftec press, ■Rew Kocft 



Many of the poems in this collection were originally contributed 
to periodicals, and the author wishes to acknowledge his obligation 
to the editors and proprietors of The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston 
Evening Transcript, The Christian Union, The Congregationalist, 
The Critic, The Literary IVorld, The New England Magazine, and 
The Youth^s Companion for their permission to republish here. 



CONTENTS 

ECHOES FROM ROMAN VOICES page 

Prelude 3 

Old Friends 5 

The Song of Silenus 12 

The Bees of Aristaeus 23 

In Scipio's Gardens 35 

Corydon to Thyrsis 56 

AL FRESCO 

The Far Blue Hills .61 

Endymion 63 

A Spring Note 65 

The Trees 67 

Vacation 70 

•* The White Worlds Rise, the White Worlds Sink " . .72 

''Go, Read in the Book of the Hills" .... 73 

Orion 74 

Through the Telescope 75 

PRO PATRIA 

On the Return of the Frigate " Constitution" ... 79 

The Passing of Spain from the Western Hemisphere . . 89 

The Spectres of Marathon 93 

Greece 95 

THE CITY OF VISION 

The City of Vision 99 

Co-operation 101 

Greatness 103 

vii 



Viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Immortals 104 

Sic Vos Non Vobis 106 

Judas 108 

In Memoriam 114 

The Dead Teacher • n? 

The Tree and the Star 120 

All Souls' Eve 121 

IN DIVERS TONES 

The God of the Gate 125 

Opportunity 127 

The Sword 128 

Orpheus 131 

The City of the Violet Crown 132 

The Wizard Poet 135 

The Silent City 139 

To an Archeologist 141 

Invocation to Horace 144 

Longfellow »47 

Whittier 149 

A Salutation 151 

The Return 154 

SONNETS 

Hesperides 157 

Venice 158 

Foro Romano 159 

Sphinx 160 

To William Watson 161 

Mars 162 

The Sonnet 1 63 

VIGILS 

Vigils 167 

Hymn for the Closing Year . . . . ' . . 1 70 

Patmos 172 

L' Envoi 1 74 



ECHOES FROM ROMAN VOICES 



MINE and not mine the songs I utter here : 
Mine was the harp ; I held it to the winds 
That down a score of silent centuries 
Blow, filling all the spaces of the world. 
Not mine the breath that touched it into sound — 
Although so feebly ; for the strings are few 
And small, and all the instrument is rough, 
Nor holds a thousandth of the melody 
That drives against it — no, not mine, but theirs, 
Who, undiscerned but roaming all the winds. 
And scattering the sweet echoes of themselves. 
Gave me the theme, in which the music lies. 
Wrapping it round with music of their own ; 
Whom I had loved since first my heart could feel 
The love of beauty and aspiring thought 
That center round their stately Roman names. 



OLD FRIENDS 

OLD as the centuries reaching back to Rome. 
I call them friends because in my still hours 
They speak their heart out, give me of their best, 
And make appeal to what is best in me, 
Scorning the tricks made common in our day, 
And holding their high levels of theme and thought 
In spite of all down-dragging earthliness, 
These friends whose faces 1 have never seen. 

Therefore, as one who walks the lowland ways, 

While rock and stream are wrapped in morning mist, 

Pauses, perchance, to hear a pleasant voice 

Singing somewhere above him on the hills, 

And wonders of the song and of the voice, 

Till his imagination all alive 

Bestows on them a figure and a face, — 

Shepherd, or farmer-lad, or milking-maid, 

Or some lone traveler passing through the land, — 

So I, in dealing with these unseen friends, 

By such poor pencilings have tried to catch 

Their faces from the voices and the songs. 

5 



6 OLD FRIENDS 

I 
LUCRETIUS 

One sang the grand beginnings, — the wild storm 
Of atoms and the gathering of the worlds ; 
He sang the children of the teeming earth, 
And love, the mother of all life ; the sense 
Of being thrilled him ; it was good to be. 
To look upon the light, and feel the sun. 
And tremble with the rhythm of the world. 

And truth was good ; he loved it, not as one 
Who clung to husks of what no more was truth, 
But as a searcher bold to push his thought 
Beyond convention's boundary after light. 

He mixed his soul with nature, — with the trees, 

The flowering meads, the splendor of the stars. 

The plash of waves and moanings of the wind ; 

Yet found therein no heart like his heart, warm 

With human sympathies ; nature was cold. 

And chance played havoc with men's hopes and lives, 

What time the gods, who neither knew nor cared, 

Basked somewhere in the sunshine far away, 

And laughed, and feasted, till their day should come. 

And life became to him a little thing, 
A gleam — only to show how inky-black 



OLD FRIENDS 7 

The flood — a flower, a note or two of song, 
A ripple of air, a very little thing, 
Not worth the pain of it, this little life, 
And then an end where all is as it was. 

For in his system ruinous seeds were hid : 

One deep engulfing Shadow, wherein aught 

Of light or life is smitten at a touch, 

And slain, and falls to nothing evermore. 

Lay stretched far off, wide-mouthed, immovable. 

Across the troubled pathway of the Whole, 

An unrelenting, universal grave. 

The power of it wrought on him ; as a bird, 

Spying a serpent, feels the dreadful charm, 

And silent grows, and inch by inch is drawn 

A helpless victim to its doom, so he. 

Letting his strength ooze from him, face to face 

With that great shadow of Doubt and Death, brake off, 

Midway the music of it, all his song. 

And slipped into the blackness of the void. 

But yet his voice goes singing through the world. 
And in it the truth-seeking soul of man. 



VERGIL 



Another, one of the anointed few 

Who, down the ages, bear the sacred torch 



OLD FRIENDS 

Delivered out of heaven, to be passed 
In due succession on from hand to hand, 
Growing and shining on the paths of men, 
Till, the vast circle of the years complete, 
It comes again into the hand of God, — 
This other, in the interval between 
Great Homer and the glorious Florentine, 
Builded his dream of mingled fate and faith. 
Now swaying toward the dreary pagan doubt. 
Now, by prophetic vision or mere chance, 
Toward the dear Hope so soon to light the world. 

From that dividing isthmus of his times 

He heard — and with a quicker ear than most — 

Two oceans murmuring, — storm and stress behind, 

Peace and the harmonies of peace before. 

And more and more the old storm died away. 

And more and more the better music grew. 

And more and more his creed for evils ran : 

**The God will also make an end of these." 

For in his face came momentary gleams 

As from some far off unborn Age of Gold, 

And momentary rustlings, here and there. 

In all he wrote, as from some Golden Branch — 

Sweet alien voices prophesying good. 

Men felt his power and marveled ; after, called 
Him wizard ; for they saw not all he saw, — 



OLD FRIENDS 

The Powers that overthrow to build again 

Ever at work — Greek, Trojan, what were they ?- 

He saw the oak-tree in the ruined seed, 

In falling Troy the rising walls of Rome, 

And felt the glory of the incomplete. 

And held communings with heroic souls 

Who yet would live on earth and build and rule. 

He wrought as those who seek beyond all else, 
In what they do, the fairest, farthest goal, — 
Perfection absolute, — nor pause content 
With relative achievement : noble souls. 
Who keep their eyes upon the glimmering light, 
And catch the distant murmur of a time. 
And live, and make the glory of the world. 

One of the noblest ; for, in such an age. 
He strove to grasp the skirts of his ideal. 
Receding still and crying back to him 
To follow, follow, and he followed on. 
Delaying not for pleasure, or mere ease. 
Or power, or gold, but, mindful of the voice 
And of his kinship with all noble ends, 
In such an age he followed as he could 
Along the path touched by the flying feet 
Of that which vanishes from point to point, 
And draws men after it from light to light ; 
And, following thus, made manifest himseli 



lO OLD FRIENDS 

As one who could not ever greatly care 
For aught below the perfect and the best ; 
Until, with all his tears for mortal things, 
And all his sympathy for human kind, 
And all his yearning for the farther shore, 
He passed, as blameless as a star, and left 
One more imperishable name on earth. 

Ill 

CICERO 

The third — with tongue to pierce the living hearts 
Of many men for treason's overthrow 
And for the lifting up of the oppressed, 
Itself by Fulvia's bodkin to be pjerced — 
Launched forth, a man of action, on the tide 
Which seethed and roared, and bore him to his goal. 
The shining plains of immortality. 
But swept the mighty City to her doom. 

No singer he, with all that voice ot power. 

And all that vision and rhythm in his soul ; 

No singer, yet the lover of true song, 

Of true nobility, of all things true. 

Of friends and books and nature ; grand old man 

And patriot, to the last despairing not 

Of the Republic, although marking well 

The heavy shadow settling heavier down. 



OLD FRIENDS II 

He longed for better things ; he built his home 
Amid the quiet chambers of the hills, 
O'erlooking Rome, the city of his heart, 
And saw, as those who neither sleep nor wake, — 
By glimpses, faintly, and as in a dream, — 
Another City, loftier than his own. 
And more enduring, and of nobler men. 
For, through a secret window in his life. 
Opened away from this world's noise and wrong. 
The music of the skies crept ever in, 
And evermore streamed into it the light. 
Flashed through the shadow earthward, from the 

throne 
Of Him whose dwelling overtops the stars, — 
Maker of Worlds and Lord of Human Souls. 



THE SONG OF SILENUS ; OR, THE MAKING OF 
THE WORLD 



I 

HAT old reveler, what monster, riding hither 
on an ass, 

Bald, and fat, and red of visage ? Say, you, shall we 
let him pass ? 



w 



He is drunken, he is swinging by the handle his can- 
teen, — 

Hist ! it is the god Silenus ! Quick to cover, or be 
seen ! 

Wait till from his ass he tumbles on the greensward, 

and erelong 
We shall have him at our mercy, we shall win from 

him a song. 

For he is not half the dullard that he seems, with his 

queer ways ; 
We it is that are the dullards, if we hear and do not 

praise. 

12 



THE SONG OF SILENUS 1 3 

He will sing, if so his mood is, sweetly as a great god 

can ; 
If he chooses, he will charm you with the seven pipes 

of Pan. 

Twist a chain of flowers and follow, softly through 

the shadows creep, 
Till beside some rock or fountain you shall find him 

fast asleep. 

II 

So we gathered long-stemmed lilies, bluebells from 

their rocky shelf, 
Roses blooming first that morning, each a little morn 

itself ; 

And the flowers the name still bearing which Apollo's 
favorite bore, 

With the syllable of sorrow marked upon them ever- 
more. 

Then a potent chain we twisted, and, to please him 

unaware. 
Wrought a crown of tender vine-leaves, since the old 

man's head was bare. 

And within the hour we held him in the charmed, 

flowery knot, 
While we shouted, Ho ! Silenus ! till he owned that 

he was caught ; 



14 THE SONG OF SILENUS 

Till the reeds that by the river once in voiceless 

shadows grew, 
And are now a power on earth, he lifted to his lips 

and blew. 

Loud and mirthful, weird and solemn, low and tender, 

came the strain ; 
Pausing oft, he changed the measure, blew, and 

paused, then blew again. 

And amid the many pauses, as if from the leaves he 

twirled. 
He retold the famous story of the making of the 

world. 

Wind and tree forgot their murmur, and the noisy 

brook its tongue, 
While he mingled truth and legend in his music, for 

he sung : 

III 

*' Mark you how the bright Aurora through the golden 
gateway steals, 

And the Night as swiftly follows on her silent-run- 
ning wheels ? 

" Mark you how the constellations roll through 

heaven's arch by night. 
All the noiseless alternations of the darkness and the 

light ? 



THE SONG OF SILENUS 1 5 

" Have you marked the change of seasons, and the 

tides that rise and fall, 
And the wind that ever varies, and the law that runs 

through all ? 

" How one thing another follows, and not very far 

away •: 
After waking comes the slumber; after life and growth, 

decay ? 

** Know that through the mighty framework of the 

universe a soul, 
All-pervading, all-foreseeing, lives and regulates the 

whole. 

** Know that as in aeons perished all from a begin- 
ning rose, 
So in aeons uncreated waits for all a final close. 

IV 

** Once there were no lands or waters, and no glorious 

rolling air, 
And no sunlight breaking earthward, and no starlight 

anywhere : 

'* Only nothingness, an ocean that extended more 

and more. 
With its billows that were silence and that broke 

upon no shore ; 



l6 THE SONG OF SILENUS 

*'And the many-figured atoms, rough, and smooth, 

and round, and square, 
Falling in the void in silence, just as snow-flakes in 

the air, 

'' Till a single atom, shaken by an unknown impulse, 
swerves, 

Sends its thrill through all the others, crossing paral- 
lels with curves. 

'' Round, in ever narrowing circles, were the nebulous 

masses whirled ; 
Centered in the inmost spiral lay the seed that is the 

world. 

V 

*' There in mist it lay and hardened slowly to a 

granite core, 
Whereon dropped the ceaseless atoms as on the 

eternal floor. 

''Afterwards, the heaven, pressing with its mighty 

hemisphere. 
Rose, the thinner from the denser, like a bubble, 

crystal-clear ; 

'* And the luminous globular wonders, — one by day, 

and one by night, 
Floating in the liquid ether. And the world was 

filled with light. 



THE SONG OF SILENUS 



17 



''Next, the boundless flood of waters outward from 

the center rolled, 
Wrapped the earth, o'er all its surface, in a blue and 

trembling fold ; 

"Till the hollows were created, and adown the 

mountain steeps 
Fell the waves to roar forever in their dark and lonely 

deeps. 

VI 

*'Fell the waves and rose the mountains, and the 

windy reach of shore. 
Wading outward, far and farther beat away the foam 

and roar. 

''Streaming clouds began to gather, balls of fire to 

flame and fly. 
And the elemental tempest shook the great frame of 

the sky. 

" Land and water were at warfare, earth and air were 

racked with pains ; 
Earth was furrowed into valleys, pounded here and 

there to plains. 

VII 

" Then the land was filled with beauty, all its un- 
dulating sweep 

Silver-threaded with the waters flashing backward to 
the deep ; 



1 8 THE SONG OF SILENUS 

'' Belted o'er with shining forests that began to drink 

the breeze, 
Fanning silence into music with their millions of great 

trees. 

''Came and went the gorgeous seasons, sang the 

breezes, sang the brook ; 
Passed the grand primeval splendors, with no human 

eye to look ! 

**By the river-marge the ripples fondled with the 

tuneless reeds ; 
On the ground, for countless ages, trees in silence 

dropped their seeds. 

'' Inland from the distant ocean rolled the murmur of 

his lips. 
While as yet he wrecked no navies, felt the burden of 

no ships. 

''Oh, the mighty preparation for the lord that was 

to be ! 
Oh, the waiting of the forest! oh, the solemn, solemn 

sea 1 

Vlll 

" First, the noisy waves were peopled, and a race of 

monsters seen. 
Dying in their generations, and an aeon passed 

between. 



THE SONG OF SILENUS 1 9 

**To the air came flying reptiles, — came and went, 

and left their bones. 
Which to those who read the ages are as letters in the 

stones. 

'*To the hills came walking creatures, of a less re- 
pulsive mien ; 

But they died, as died the others, and an aeon passed 
between. 

''Thus the forms of being followed in succession 

slow, each race 
Somewhat fairer than the former and more perfect in 

its place. 

*'Last of all her many children which the common 
parent bore, 

Man appeared, a god in figure, lord of all her bound- 
less store." 

IX 

Mute we sat ; the skilled Silenus filled our ears with 

heaven's tide. 
As he sang the great creation and a thousand things 

beside, — 

Sang the interstellar spaces where the blest immortals 

dwell 
In a sacred calm together, while the world goes ill or 

well ; 



20 THE SONG OF SILENUS 

Where they bask in pleasant sunshine, counting not 

the days or years, 
And the sound of human sorrow never finds their 

blessed ears ; 

And the mystery of the mountains, and the wonder 

of the sea, 
And the power of floods and earthquakes, all the 

changes that would be : 

How the race of men would perish, when our mother 

Earth no more 
Can sustain the teeming millions that must feed upon 

her store ; 

How the sun would slowly darken to a cinder till 

destroyed, 
And with all his burnt-out planets still keep falling 

down the void ; 

How the sky would fall in ruins, and the earth into 

decay, 
With the dead sun dropping downward like a pebble 

thrown away ; 

And at last how every atom would resume its 

separate form, 
Through the gulfs of darkness falling, just as in the 

primal storm. 



THE SONG OF SILENUS 21 



So he sang till on the water melted evening's golden 
bar, 

Till the fire died on the hilltops, sang until the even- 
ing star. 

Till we saw the silent Archer climb his zenith-winding 

stair, 
And across the northern heavens stream the dark 

Egyptian's hair. 

Then he paused as if to listen, half in earnest, half in 

fun, — 
But he grasped his empty wine-bag, and the old man's 

song was done. 

XI 

Slowly homeward as we carried in our hearts a new 

delight. 
Much we mused upon the story, much upon the seer, 

that night, — 

How the ugliest of bodies may contain the keenest 

soul. 
As the richest wine may sparkle in a very common 

bowl. 



22 THE SONG OF SILENUS 

And the wind that journeyed with us shook the dew- 
drops on the grass, 

While we heard far down the valley some one shout- 
ing for his ass. 



o 



THE BEES OF ARIST^US 

I 

H, the simple age of Saturn, golden period of 
peace, 

In the land that like a mother saw her sons and joys 
increase ! 

Summers of the stormless heaven, summers of the 

windless sea, 
Linked together by as little of the winter as could be ; 

Fountains singing in the covert or asleep like liquid 

glass. 
And no poison in the flowers, and no serpent in the 

grass ; 

Meads of unlaborious tillage, seas without the toiling 
oars ; 

Magic ships of cloud and sunshine dropped all treas- 
ures on all shores ; 

And no iron-handed terror smiting at the hearts of 

men ; 
Justice blindfold ruled the people, War lay chained 

within his den. 

23 



24 THE BEES OF ARIST^US 

Nor were gods ashamed to mingle in the mart or home 

and join 
Speech with speech, the words they uttered falling like 

new-minted coin. 

As a blameless star through heaven rolled the happy 

planet then, 
In the simple age of Saturn that will never be again. 

Rose her sister-world in autumn, warm and golden, 

large and low, 
Hung above the mellow harvest, cheered the reapers 

in the row. 

Rose the stars in silent order, watching from their 

heavenly march, 
And with eyes of benediction glided down the mighty 

arch. 



Woe to shepherd Aristseus! Wrong had somehow 

entered in ; 
Spirits in the purple twilight passed where kindlier 

ones had been ; 

Left a blight upon the meadows and destruction on 

the hives ; 
Flower and herb began to wither, bees forsook their 

gentle lives, — 



THE BEES OF ARISTMUS 25 

Fiery souls from little bodies sundered flew away afar, 
Every soul, as saith the poet, to its place within a star. 

Woe to shepherd Aristaeus ! Much he felt the heavy 

change, 
Mourned his dead bees and the causes so calamitous 

and strange, 

Till he stood one rosy morning near the sacred foun- 
tain-source 

Whence the king of rolling rivers sweeps on his 
majestic course. 

I!I 

Lovelier than all the valleys ever crossed by sun or 

moon 
Lies the vale where loud Peneus fills the silence of 

the noon, 

As he drives to wider regions far away his leaping 
waves, 

Shepherd of a thousand waters gathered from a thou- 
sand caves. 

Upward till the eye is weary slope the sides ; from 

hill to hill 
Climb the forests ; far in heaven you may see them 

waving still, — 



26 THE BEES OF ARISTMUS 

Green seas ever stayed from falling, down whose 

billowy ridges dart 
Shafts of dawn that search but never find the valley's 

inmost heart. 

Noonday there is mellow twilight; beauty, unobserved 

of men, 
Wakes a little from her slumber and returns to it again. 

IV 

Here the loud-voiced Aristaeus shook the echoes from 

their sleep : 
"Thou that dwellest, O my mother, in the river's 

utmost deep, 

** Hear me, if thou art my mother, as thy lips have often 

said ; 
Blight has settled on my meadows, all my golden bees 

are dead." 

She, within her crystal chamber hollowed underneath 

the foam, 
Heard a sound like human sorrow enter her immortal 

home. 

While she listened, and her maidens started as with 

sudden fear, 
Lo, -the wail of Aristaeus smote again his mother's 

ear : 



THE BEES OF ARISTA US 27 

*'Thou hast called me an immortal, dowered me with 

endless years ; 
Take thy boon, the years are bitter, I have found them 

full of tears." 

Through the tumult of the waters like an arrow to her 
soul 

Came the cry, and fair Cyrene bade the streams asun- 
der roll. 

Straightway the obedient river arched into a mighty 

fold. 
Let the young man enter dryshod over stones and sands 

of gold ; 

Showed him mysteries and wonders, the results of 

Titan force ; 
On his way he heard the waters roaring at the central 

source, 

Heard the sunken caves reecho, saw the floods before 

their birth, 
Saw Eridanus and Tiber, all the rivers of the earth. 

On he passed in much amazement ; when he reached 

the stately hall, 
Rosy faces bade him welcome. Queen Cyrene first of 

all. 



28 THE BEES OF ARISTA US 

V 

Face to face with Aristaeus she divined his secret 

heart 
And at once with silent gesture bade the others stand 

apart. 

Then she spoke with deep compassion and some 

winged words of blame : 
*'Well I know thy hidden trouble, how it eats thee 

like a flame. 

*' Son, remember ; for I saw thee by the river's pebbly 

shore, 
When thy heart was bent on evil — saw the one who 

fled before, 

*' How the unaccustomed serpent smote her from the 

greening blades. 
And her sweet and guileless spirit went below the 

gloomy shades. 

'' Thou wert guilty. Thracian Orpheus — none could 

blow a sweeter breath — 
Mourned his bride, and followed, living, down into the 

realm of death, 

"Piped until she heard the music faintly creeping on 

the night, 
Till she followed, for he drew her, strove to draw her 

back to light. 



THE BEES OF ARISTA US 29 

" But he broke the hard condition under love's more 

potent spell — 
Error that might be forgiven, were forgiveness known 

to hell — 

"Then her steps began to falter, sleep to shroud her 
swimming eyes. 

And a second time she vanished like a smoke in dark- 
ened skies. 

"Thrice, in token all was ended, thrice across the 

gloomy flood 
Rolled the melancholy thunder, thrice a terror chilled 

the blood. 

"Empty was his heart forever ; sorrow filled, then 

stilled, the song 
Of the sweetest of all singers ; thou hadst done him 

grievous wrong. 

"But the gods, the lords of justice, watching over all 
events. 

Send their spirits in the twilight with the even recom- 
pense. 

" They have found thee, Aristaeus, fostering the serpent 

sin ; 
Thou hast wrought with it a mischief ; still the poison 

lurks within. 



30 THE BEES OF ARISTA US 

"Proteus alone can help thee ; find and bind him ; 

make him tell ; 
Do not mind the looks and struggling of the prophet. 

Fare thee well." 

So they parted, son and mother. He was far upon 

his path 
When the flame fell from Olympus and the stars rose 

from their bath. 

VI 

Proteus, with team of fishes, circled round and round 

the bay ; 
All the morn his wheels were flashing in their furrows 

far away. 

But, when he had come to slumber in his cave's un- 
guarded tent. 
Half the flaming circle of the sun already spent, 

Aristseus stole upon him with the bonds that none 
may break — 

Who can break his bonds when pity holds one for an- 
other's sake ? — 

Much the monster writhed and twisted, all his direful 

shapes became, 
Now a serpent, now a whirlwind, now he columned 

into flame. 



THE BEES OF ARISTMUS 3 1 

But in vain ; the tear was stronger than the strength 

of any god, 
And at last the seer grew patient and was ruled as by 

a nod. 

VII 

*'Ah!" he said, "I see the causes; nothing ever 

comes of naught ; 
Link by link the chain has lengthened, but the first 

link was a thought. 

''Know that sin lies in the motive, and, though silent, 

soon or late 
Reaches down into the future the resistless hand of 

fate ; 

''Though forgot it works its errand; from the little 
seed it bears. 

Springs an unintended harvest ; then it finds thee un- 
awares. 

" Son, remember ; I beheld thee by the river's pebbly 
shore ; 

All the silent eyes of heaven know thy guilt for ever- 
more. 

"And the gods, the lords of justice, watching over hu- 
man lives, 

Sent their spirits in the twilight ; these have wrought 
against thy hives. 



32 THE BEES OF ARISTjEUS 

''These have wrought, the rest will follow; evil 

grows from more to more ; 
Slowly grind the mills of heaven, but they grind one 

to the core. 

" Lo, if thou wouldst be forgiven, if in any comfort 

live, 
Slay the evil thou hast fostered ; haply may the gods 

forgive. 

*' Thrice three oxen of the fairest that in all thy pas- 
tures graze, 

Sacrifice before thy altars, leave their bodies thrice 
three days." 

Proteus abruptly ending plunged away beneath the 

foam ; 
Wrapped in doubt, yet vaguely hoping, Aristaeus 

journeyed home. 

Chose the fairest of his oxen, slew and left them on 

the ground 
Near his altars, then departed till the days should roll 

around. 

VIII 

When the ninth unsullied morning shot its splendor 

through the pines. 
Drew the veils that robed the meadows, stirred the 

nests amid the vines, 



THE BEES OF ARISTA US 33 

Came the shepherd Aristseus with an anxious heart to 

find 
If his sin had been forgiven and the gods again were 

kind. 

Lo, the miracle that happened ! As he listened, far 

away 
Something like a faint susurrus rose upon the breeze 

that day. 

Soon he recognized the buzzing of innumerable wings, 
Saw the air alive and flashing with a host of tiny 
things. 

Forth from every slaughtered victim poured a separate 
stream of bees, 

Trailed away on airy courses with a sound like rip- 
pling seas. 

Many miles the line extended, for it seemed to have 

no end. 
Swarm on swarm its numbers adding till the shades 

began to blend. 

Then the mighty clusters hanging from the branches 
touched the ground, 

Filled the night's ambrosial silence with a glad con- 
tinual sound. 
3 



34 THE BEES OF ARIST^US 

On the morrow, as aforetime, over mead and wood 

and wold 
Went and came the busy thousands singing with their 

loads of gold. 



IN SCIPIO'S GARDENS 

ZJT ARK! the fitful wind is veering; let us pause, 

or change the tone. 
Till a little loftier music through the trembling 
strings is blown. 

For I hear the trees that rustle near the Tiber's lordly 

roll. 
And I hear the men beneath them talking of the 

deathless soul, — 

Piso, Lcelius, and the hero wearing his adopted name 
With the double glory round it, Africanus dear to 
fame. 

L/ELIUS 

Much do I admire the statues that diffuse their silent 

grace 
Through thy gardens, but I wonder, missing one 

familiar face. 

AFRICANUS 

Whose, pray ? 

35 



36 IN SCIPIO'S GARDENS 

L/ELIUS 

His whose name will flourish when a 
host of others fall, 
Withered leaves, from off the branches of the Tree 
that shades us all, — 

Tree of Rome's imperial greatness ; his will feel not 

the control 
Of the winds from dark oblivion, as the endless 

seasons roll. 

AFRICANUS 

' T is Nasica whom thou meanest ? 

Ly^LIUS 

Thou hast said it ; 
even thou 
Must acknowledge he is worthy of the laurel on his 
brow. 

AFRICANUS 

True, as yet he hath no statue ; not in what our eyes 

may see 
Or our hands may handle, Laelius, have we shrined 

his memory. 

But the need is less, it may be, since he played so 

grand a part ; 
Fame does not reside in statues, glory is not all from 

art. 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 37 

Bronze will tarnish, marble crumble, both will perish 

at the touch 
Of the hand of the destroyer ; there are better things 

than such. 

What though, hewn by mighty chisels, Athos 

changed his bulk of stone 
Into Alexander's features, and from his aerial zone 

Gazed with stony eyes forever over island, wave, and 

fleet; 
Gazed on by the pigmy nations sailing underneath his 

feet,— 

Would that bear the conqueror's glory farther down 

the living age 
Than the frail though magic figures breathing from 

the written page ? 

Other hands are vain to help thee win thy name a 

length of days ; 
Better is thine own achievement than a thousand 

gusts of praise. 

Better far the unseen statue, living in the hearts of 

men, 
Than the forms of dust that crumble and return to 

dust again. 



38 IN SCI PI as GARDENS 

What saith Ennius, our poet ? ** Build no monuments, 

nor give 
Tears for me or lamentation : on the lips of men I 

live." 

L/ELIUS 

Ay, but statues have their uses ; if the man be truly 

great, 
Then his image stands a pillar in the fabric of the 

State. 

Freedom rests some hope upon it ; treason fears the 

noble dead 
When they throng the Forum living in their images 

instead. 

Nothing cold and nothing speechless is a statue, as it 

stands 
In the eyes of all our children, as if beckoning with 

its hands : 

**Come up hither ; for your country spare no labor, 

pain, or scars ; 
Over deeds like mine, Quirites, lies the pathway to 

the stars." 

PISO 

Lselius hath it, Africanus ; he is right and both are 
right ; 

What is in us stirs and thrills us, ofttimes, at the out- 
ward sight. 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 39 

All our great ones, all our worthiest — be their lives and 

names our care 
To remember, cherish, honor, though themselves 

dwell otherwhere. 

Such, methinks, are twice immortal — with the gods 

in heaven, and then 
In their deeds on earth forever working out the good 

of men. 

L>€LIUS 

Would we might, O Africanus, now we touch the 

lofty theme, 
Hear from thy own lips the story of the marvels of thy 

dream, 

When, in Masinissa's palace, seemed the aged king to 

see 
His great-hearted Africanus living once again in thee. 

AFRICANUS 

Yes, as fire that long has smoldered, suddenly may 

burst to flame, 
So his friendship for the hero at the mention of my 

name. 

For the kind old man received me, loved me, for the 
name 1 bore ; 

Asked with tears of Africanus, talked of him and noth- 
ing more, 



40 IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 

Every sentence "Africanus," "Africanus," till it seemed 
All the world was Africanus ; and that very night I 
dreamed. 

PISO 

Let us hear it. 

L/€LIUS 

Tell it to us. 

AFRICANUS 

What, am 1 so hardly pressed ? 
But there 's more in dreams, believe me, than this 
world has ever guessed. 

Dreams forerun the slow tomorrows — silent-footed 

heralds they. 
Bearing in their face the image of the things upon the 

way. 

Long we talked ; and, when we ended, in the dim 

uncertain light 
Looked 1 forth upon the beauty and the boundlessness 

of night. 

But my thoughts were on dear faces seen no more 

this world around. 
And my heart was full of yearning as the sea was full 

of sound. 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 4 1 

What of Paulus? Africanus? Could the eternal heavens 

and sea 
For the blessed dead make answer — what they are 

and where they be ? 

Soft the night ; the world was glorious, all its wheels 

were running well ; 
When the spacious earth fell from me, narrowing, 

dwindling, as it fell — 

With its frozen poles, its deserts, all its zones of 

flowers and trees. 
All its mountains distance-flattened to the flat and 

shining seas — 

Fell and lay within the shadow, far, and far, and far 

away, 
Seeming now as nothing larger than the ball we toss 

at play ; 

All its armies, pomps, ambitions, vanished as if they 

were not, 
And our Roman Empire on it showing only like a 

dot! 

1 was standing, full of wonder, where each hour new 

wonder brings, 
On the threshold of the glory and the magnitude of 

things. 



42 IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 

Splendid was the threshold, splendid all that azure 
airy floor, 

Blinding splendor all around me, all above me, all be- 
fore ; 

For the stars that seem as pin-points in the canopy of 

night, 
Now looked near, and large, and awful ; they were 

ocean-worlds of light. 

Then a low strange music, having somewhere in that 

realm its birth, 
With such harmony and sweetness as are never known 

on earth, 

Crept upon me, louder, sweeter, filled my unaccus- 
tomed ears. 

For I heard the solemn turning of the stately mighty 
spheres, 

Saturn, Jove, and all the others, sphere in sphere ; I 

heard them roll, 
And the outmost self-moved God-sphere moving, 

steadying the whole. 

While I stood amazed and fearing, lo, a mist as white 

as wool. 
Interfused with splendor, like a star's, and wonderful, 



IN SCI PI as GARDENS 43 

Seemed to gather, drifting toward me, till my keener 

sight could trace 
Cloudlike flowing folds of raiment ; in the cloud a 

living face — 

Dared 1 think it ? — Africanus ! 't was his very self I 

saw 
Clothed in his immortal toga, and he filled my soul 

with awe. 

But he spake with voice like music : **0 my name- 
sake, do not fear : 

Evil clings to earth, but evil never thrives or enters 
here. 

*'A11 good speech and all good action which have ever 

blessed thy earth. 
All good souls, where'er they wander, in this region 

had their birth, — 

**Home of those who felled the forest, slew the beast, 

and sailed the brine. 
Lived, and strove, and toiled, and suffered for that 

little world of thine : 

''Warriors, statesmen, sages, poets — all who know, 

and love, and do ; 
And the good great Master Workman dwells among 

them, working too. 



44 I^ SCIPiaS GARDENS 

"He it is that knows them, loves them, sends them 

thither in His plan 
For the building up of nations and the betterment of 

man, 

** Giving them to do, not always just the thing they 

seek and ask, 
But the thing that yields the service ; He Himself 

assigns the task. 

** Men are dear to God, but never are so dear and near 

as when 
For the love of it they render service to their fellow 

men. 

"And His true ones and His faithful self-denying ones 

He calls, 
When the special task is over, back to these immortal 

halls. 

"And they come into His presence, not to rest, but still 
to do. 

Still to take the boon He gives them and with joy be- 
gin anew. 

" For it is their joy forever just to serve and to obey, 
Here or wheresoe'er He chooses, — no mere sunshine- 
baskers they ! 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 45 

*' What on thy poor earth thou namest chance or fate, 

we understand 
Is the Master and His workers shaping things with 

skillful hand ; 

** For this is the glorious temple, where the free clear- 
visioned soul 

Sees no longer things in fragments, but may contem- 
plate the whole." 

Thus he spake ; my eyes kept wandering downward 

ever toward the spot 
Where the little earth lay swimming in the shadow 

unforgot, 

With the home and friends and places I in heaven still 

dared to love, 
When a voice went by me whispering, ''Look not 

down, but look above." 

Then I lifted up my vision, and, behold, the very 

air 
Seemed alive with forms and faces all about me 

everywhere, — 

Faces I had seen in statues ; and, in many a shining 

row, 
Others I had merely read of, others still I did not 

know. 



46 JN SCIPiaS GARDENS 

Suddenly one coming toward me filled my heart anew 

with fears — 
Lo, 't was Paulus, my dear father, and my eyes o'er- 

flowed with tears. 

''O my son," said noble Paulus, "in the beauty 

round thee spread 
Some are living, as thou seest, whom the world 

considers dead. 

'* Those who cherish uncontaminate what was given 

them at the start, — 
That pure spark of soul struck outward from the great 

God's life and heart, 

** That which in them warms them, thrills them, and 

impels them toward the sky — 
Reverence, justice, love of country — such, my son, 

will never die. 

*' For the frail and feeble body is not thou ; the soul is 

thou ; 
Know, then, that thou art immortal, if thou truly 

livest now. 

** Thinking, loving, seeking, doing — this belongs not 

to the clod, 
This is of the soul and makes thee sharer in the life of 

God. 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 47 

'' And as fire released flies upward to its fountain in 

the sun, 
So the soul to God its author when the little task is 

done." 

Thus he spoke ; I made no answer, for my tears were 

falling fast ; 
But he added, quickly seeing how my mind was on 

the past : 

*'To and fro on silent hinges move the gates of day 
and night, 

Letting out and in the darkness ; in and out, the glo- 
rious light. 

'* Round and round and round in heaven roll the ever- 
lasting spheres ; 

To and fro and round forever on thy earth the days 
and years. 

'' Onward march the generations through the ages ; to 

and fro, 
Round and round, or ever onward, all things in their 

seasons go. 

"But the soul that seeks not greatly what the world 

may take or give, 
Lives, though in it yet above it, as the eternal God doth 

live. 



48 IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 

*' Conflagrations, floods, and earthquakes, wrecks and 

ruins of time and space — 
O'er them all, in all their changes, lifts the soul her 

starlike face." 

Then again spake Af ricanus : ' * Thou wilt not forget 

the claim 
Civic duty lays upon thee — thee, the bearer of my 

name. 

** Men have need of one another in their stations great 

or small ; 
T is on earth a truth of heaven — all for each and each 

for all. 

**Just to take what others toiled for, suffered for, and 

never bring 
Thought or service back to others — citizen, 't were a 

shameless thing ! 

**And the God, whose purpose marches steadily 

through the future's gates. 
Holds for it in special favor those great brotherhoods 

called States. 

*'Men who help to shape the counsels, wielding 

power of ax and rod. 
Must be strong and wise and noble, as the ministers 

of God. 



JN SCIPiaS GARDENS 49 

**Love thy country ; she deserves it; God requires it ; 

shield her cause ; 
Build her up in gentler manners, purer justice, nobler 

laws ; 

** Build her up in peerless honor and in all that makes a 

state 
Safe in framework and foundation, and a loyal people 

great. 

** Lo, the fateful hour approaches, like a dragging cloud 

at sea, 
When thy poor distracted country will for refuge turn 

to thee. 

'' Art thou able } Art thou worthy } Hast thou will to 

dare and do } 
Canst thou drop self-love behind thee and to truth 

alone be true ? 

"Thou must stand, thy country's bulwark, while 

the storm goes roaring past, — 
Thou, though others fail, stand faithful and undaunted 

to the last. 

''Take into thy heart the secret learned by every 

man of might : 
Victory is as sure as God is, when the man and cause 

are right. 



50 IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 

"There are Powers that work in silence with the 

hero's arm and soul, 
And they work for righteous issues, and they never 

miss their goal. 

" Less it matters how the troubles of the present grow 

or spend ; 
Man's supreme concern and question is — What lieth 

at the end ? 

** Stand, then, to thy work and purpose, dare with 

circumstance to cope, 
And believe the heavenly secret, and forever cling to 

hope." 

Here he paused, then vaguely pointing westward with 

his shining hand. 
Added slowly words that haunt me, although strange 

to understand : 

**For there lives far down the future, where no eye 

on earth can see, 
That which crowns the Is and Has Been with the 

glory of To Be. 

** Rome and Carthage, if they saw it, would no longer 

be at strife ; 
States would learn how each contributes to the world's 

completer life. 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 5 1 

*'More and more must all the nations, fitted to an 

ampler plan, 
Merge their interests in the nobler final brotherhood of 

man." 

So he ceased. Then noble Paulus said in accents 

deeply drawn : 
*'Take, my son, a father's counsel for thy great hour 

coming on. 

"It is coming, I behold it ; thou must have thy trial 

too ; 
Thou wilt also have thy triumph, if thou to thyself art 

true. 

"Do not be as those whose purpose topples over at a 

breath ; 
Guard the grand old Roman virtue steadfastness unto 

the death. 

"Let them blame thee, scorn thee, mock thee ; mind 

them not, for talk they will ; 
Mind thy purpose and thy motive ; do thy work, and 

be thou still. 

"Oh, for still strong men of action everywhere and 

evermore. 
Who will neither swerve nor falter when the hostile 

voices roar! 



52 IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 

"Lords o'er circumstance, and servants of their con- 
science — noble men, 

Destined to be welcomed some day in these shining 
halls again. 

** See to it the common prizes do not make thee pause 

or turn ; 
Keep thine eyes straightforward always where the 

larger splendors burn. 

'* Care not overmuch for glory and the greatness of a 
name ; 

Mark on thy small earth how narrow run the bound- 
aries of fame ; 

*'For the longest age is only as a drop let fall, and 

whirled 
Down the depths of that wild ocean streaming endless 

round the world. 

"What is fame that seems so mighty? T is a little 

puff of air, 
Scarce a breath ; the winds absorb it, bear it no man 

knoweth where. 

" But, my son, there is a glory thou canst aim for and 

be wise ; 
Scorn it not — the only glory ever reaching to the 

skies. 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 53 

** Learn the greatest of achievements — simple duty 

simply done ; 
And the greatest glory — goodness ; by these twain 

the heights are won. 

'' Lo, they move the gates of morning in thy world ! 

A little spell 
Thou must find thy duty yonder ; I have told thee ; 

now farewell." 

He withdrew, and very softly all the stately vision 

broke 
Like a beautiful cloud and vanished ; in the palace I 

awoke. 

L/€LIUS 

Splendid vision ! It must haunt thee in whate'er thy 
hands will do. 

PISO 

Glorious hope 1 O Africanus, thinkest thou the 
vision true .^ 

AFRICANUS 

Yea, I hold that what is noblest and arouses all our 

powers 
With immortal longings for it, some day, somewhere, 

must be ours. 



54 IN SCIFIO'S GARDENS 

If we cling to past achievement or to present time and 

place, 
Life runs backward, slowly dying ; fades the light 

upon our face. 

But if we respect the vision, follow it, and follow 

still, 
And with steadfastness of purpose, then we gain the 

end we will. • 

On all other paths of effort circumstance may set its 

bars, 
Stop us, thwart us, but, oh, never on the pathway to 

the stars. 

What we take as our ideals grow to be our masters 

dumb ; 
In the stillness they will mold us ; like themselves we 

must become. 

Not the good thing we accomplish, but the better 

thing we plan. 
Not achievement but ideal, is the measure of a man. 

And the good God will not judge us merely as the 

men we are. 
But by what we love and strive for He will judge us — 

clod or star. 



IN SCIPiaS GARDENS 55 

For what draws us, seeming over all things else su- 
premely fair, 
Is our truer self discovered living and eternal there. 

And our dreams are sent from heaven for the present's 

golden spur. 
Ask you, is the soul immortal ? Let us live as if it 

were. 



Thus ihey talked, and thus they ended, and the long 

calm summer day 
In a bed of golden ashes sank, and burned, and died 

away. 

Gone the speakers, gone the Gardens, Rome's imperial 
greatness gone ; 

But the same old solemn question in the world is liv- 
ing on. 



CORYDON TO THYRSIS 

ASK me no more ! The tree less idly waits 
For last year's bird than thou for song of mine. 
Yet when the evening reddens into wine 
Our little stream and dies beyond the gates, 
When the soft voices in the pines are come, 
1 feel my heart stir, but my lips are dumb. 

For I have heard the master ! Wise, indeed, 
Had I in silence been content to hear, 
Nor idly striven, when he was not near. 

To draw so grand a music through my reed. 

Fool that I was ! 1 tried to mould his song 

For old Damaetas, who has loved me long. 

As well one leaf might voice the rustling hill, 
Or glowworm hold the splendor of a star, 
As my poor oat straw trill a single bar ! 

It merely mocked his infinite sweet skill, — 

It mocked his skill, and did a woful thing 

For me, because I can no longer sing. 

56 



CORY DON TO THYRSIS 57 

Look ! the cool air is rolling on the plain 
A thicker shadow, and clear Hesper shines 
Where Maenalus is musical with pines. 

This was the hour in which I heard the strain. 

Wait till he comes ; then thou thyself wilt see, 

And never after ask a song of me. 



AL FRESCO 



59 



i. 



THE FAR BLUE HILLS 

1LIFT my eyes and ye are ever there, 
Wrapped in the folds of the imperial air, 
And crowned with gold of morn or evening rare, 
O far blue hills. 

Around you break the lights of heaven all, 
There rolls away the Titan's splendid ball. 
And there the circling suns of midnight fall, 
O far blue hills. 

Wild bursts the hurricane o'er lake and land. 
Loud roars the cloud and smites with blazing brand ; 
They pass, and silence comes, and there ye stand, 
O far blue hills. 

Your spirit fills the wide horizon round 
And lays on all things here its peace profound, 
Till I forget that I am of the ground, 
O far blue hills, — 

Forget the earth to which I loved to cling. 
And soar away as on an eagle's wing, 
To be with you a calm and steadfast thing, 
O far blue hills ; 

6i 



62 THE FAR BLUE HILLS 

While small the care that seemed so great before, 
Faint as the breeze that fans your ledges o'er ; 
Yea, 't is the passing shadow and no more, 
O far blue hills. 



ENDYMION 

HOW slowly falls yon sickle from on high 
Through evening's silent sky, 
Flashing a splendor from its curved blade 
On the low-lying shade ! 

Now in and out the narrow cloud that bars 
Its pathway from the stars 
It slips, and with a golden glory shines, 
Nearing the mountain lines. 

Nay, 't is no sickle which some unseen hand 

Lets fall upon the land ; 

It is the jewel of a lady's crown, 

As she steps lightly down. 

Night after night, down the aerial stair 
She stealeth unaware. 
Leaving the empire which she rules above, 
And all her state, for love. 

Behold, her feet have touched the rocky steeps 
Where the young shepherd sleeps, 
63 



64 END YMION 

And larger burns her jewel as she moves 
In search of him she loves. 

And now it fades, and glimmers, and is gone. 
Happy Endymion ! 

While here the world in sudden shadow lies. 
She bends above his eyes. 



A SPRING NOTE 

LISTEN ! her great heart is beating, once again you 
hear it warm and strong ; 
Through her veins of blue the waters, seaward-drawn, 
full-flooded, bound along. 

Tongues are in the brooks, and voices in the winds 

are set like fairy flutes ; 
Trees and vines and herbs are quickened, life has long 

been stirring at the roots. 

Now upon our mountain altars earlier comes and 

longer burns the flame ; 
Sweet-voiced strangers throng the valleys, putting all 

the poets' songs to shame. 

Far and wide o'er stream and woodland flings the 

shower its crystal treasures rare. 
Iris, robed in light, descending on her jeweled ladder irt 

the air. 

Roll the silver constellations through an ocean-world 
of milder blue ; 

In the night aerial spirits fill the new-made flower- 
cups with dew. 

65 



^ A SPRING NOTE 

Mother Earth, I may not ask thee all the mystery I seek 

to know, 
Listening upon thy bosom to the Force that lives and 

works below ; 

But with this bright dome above me, these sweet 

sounds of life returning here, 
Well I know thy heart beats ever, though mine feebler 

beats from year to year. 



THE TREES 

Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata. — /Eneid viii., 315. 

THERE 'S something in a noble tree — 
What shall I say ? a soul ? 
For 't is not form, or aught we see 

In leaf, or branch, or bole. 
Some presence, though not understood, 

Dwells there always, and seems 
To be acquainted with our mood. 
And mingles in our dreams. 

I would not say that trees at all 

Were of our blood and race. 
Yet, lingering where their shadows fall, 

I sometimes think 1 trace 
A kinship, whose far-reaching root 

Grew when the world began, 
And made them best of all things mute 

To be the friends of man. 
67 



68 THE TREES 

Held down by whatsoever might 

Unto an earthly sod, 
They stretch forth arms for air and light 

As we do after God ; 
And when in all their boughs the breeze 

Moans loud, or softly sings, 
As our own hearts in us, the trees 

Are almost human things. 

What wonder in the days that burned 

With old poetic dream, 
Dead Phaethon's fair sisters turned 

To poplars by the stream ! 
In many a light cotillion stept 

The trees when fluters blew ; 
And many a tear, 't is said, they wept 

For human sorrow too. 

Mute, said 1 } They are seldom thus ; 

They whisper each to each, 
And each and all of them to us. 

In varied forms of speech. 
**Be serious," the solemn pine 

Is saying overhead ; 
" Be beautiful," the elm-tree fine 

Has always finely said ; 



THE TREES 69 

" Be quick to feel," the aspen still 

Repeats the whole day long ; 
While, from the green slope of the hill, 

The oak-tree adds, '' Be strong." 
When with my burden, as 1 hear 

Their distant voices call, 
I rise, and listen, and draw near, 

*' Be patient," say they all. 



VACATION 

THE Spirit of Life has wrought upon the world 
The old-time miracle ; none knoweth how : 
Green fields, the banners of the wood unfurled, 
The flash of wings across the smiling moors, 
The piled-up cumuli where heaven soars 
All beautiful ever : — it is summer now. 
And I am free in God's great out-of-doors ! 

In the warm grasses as one lies alone, 

And hears the message which the low wind brings - 

Unsyllabled, indeed, but not unknown — 

His very being seems to ebb and spend. 

And somehow in the great world-rhythm blend, — 

Those deep pulsations from the heart of things 

That throb, and throb, and throb, and make no end. 

All things are mine ; to all things I belong ; 
I mingle in them — heeding bounds nor bars — 
Float in the cloud, melt in the river's song ; 
In the clear wave from rock to rock I leap. 
Widen away, and slowly onward creep ; 

70 



VACATION 71 

I stretch forth glimmering hands beneath the stars, 
And lose my little murmur in the deep. 

Yea, more than that ; whatever I behold — 
Dark forest, mountain, the o'erarching wheel 
Of heaven's solemn turning, all the old 
Immeasurable air and boundless sea — 
Yields of its life, builds life and strength in me 
For tasks to come, while I but see and feel, 
And merely am, and it is joy to be. 

For that small spark within us is not blind 

To its beginning ; struck from one vast Soul 

Which, in the frame-work of the world, doth bind 

All parts together ; small, but still agreeing 

With That which moulded us without our seeing : 

Since God is all, and all in all — the Whole, 

In whom we live, and move, and have our being. 



*^THE WHITE WORLDS RISE, THE WHITE 
WORLDS SINK" 

THE white worlds rise, the white worlds sink. 
And the tides they come and go ; 
All blank and dead the sky o'erhead, 
And the beach lies bare below. 

The white worlds sink, the white worlds rise, 

And the tides they go and come ; 
The sky bends bright o'er waves at night 

On shores no longer dumb. 

The wild wind blows ; it can not blow 
The white worlds from their track ; 

The storm roars far, but can not bar 
The tides from coming back. 

To all the worlds, to all the tides. 

That none may say them nay, 
An unseen Power hath set the hour 

And all things give it way. 

O chance, O change, O life, O death, 

I fear not what will be ; 
The Power that guides the stars and tides 

Will make my path for me. 



72 



GO, READ IN THE BOOK OF THE HILLS" 



G° 



read in the Book of the Hills the tale of a 
dateless past, 
And read in the Book of the Stars the story of all that 

is vast. 
Behind, before, around, they bear an unending sway, 
These Angels of Time and Space — oh, terrible Angels 
they! 

If thus we stand appalled in the presence of Time and 
Space, 

And marvel at what they do, and tremble to look in 
their face. 

What must it seem to behold, however dim and far. 

The face of the King Himself — His face whose serv- 
ants they are ! 



■ 73 



ORION 

THREE jewels, flaming in his belt, 
Beat back the ancient shade. 
And, marching up the height, he looms 
A giant unafraid. 

Wear three in thine, — faith, hope, and love, — 

And thou art armed right well : 
All powers must yield to their charmed might 

In heaven or earth or hell. 



74 



THROUGH THE TELESCOPE 



GULF in the sky beyond the outermost, faintest 



A 

r\ mark 



Of star-dust, a mammoth gulf illumined by never a 

spark, 
Where thousands of systems like ours might roll 

around in the dark — 
The very dark of dark, in spite of the light that runs 
Streaming along its marge from the splendor of dying 

suns. 
And in spite of the light that spreads like the threads 

of wind-blown hair 
For leagues, that out-million the millions, across the 

abysm there, 
And in spite of the myriad worlds that, borne upon 

gleaming tides. 
Have tumbled, ruining, down the terrible slope of its 

sides. 
So dark, and the dark of dark, so deep, and the deep 

of deep, 
Where never a sound doth stir, and never a life-throb 

creep. 

75 



^6 THROUGH THE TELESCOPE 

The Pit of the Universe is it ? the wild and bottomless 
grave 

For the things that God in His mercy has vainly en- 
deavored to save ? 

Where all the things that are useless, and all that love 
decay, 

And all things evil, are thrown forever and ever away ? 

Or is it the vast Outside, so void of the things that 
are, 

That, bearing aloft not even the candle of one pale 
star, 

Our God Himself has ventured never as yet so far? 



PRO PATRIA 



77 



ON THE RETURN OF THE FRIGATE 
^'CONSTITUTION" 

1897 

I 

BRING her home to her rest, 
For her work is done ; 
And north and south and east and west 
Let the sound of her glorious welcome run. 

This is the vessel that sailed away 
A hundred years ago ; 
And this is the vessel, as all men know, 
That, ship for ship and man for man, 
Since the hour her great career began. 
Found never an equal in her day. 

The sea and the untamed powers of air 
Might smite against her and smite her bare. 
And the terrible war-voice round her roar — 
God knows how they roared, how they smote 

and tore 
This child of 'ninety-seven ! 
79 



80 RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION'' 

If she fled, it was only to win the fight ; 
If she stayed, God pity her foeman's plight ! 
Whatever the task the brave deemed right, 
She flinched not once, but held her face 
Full-front to the danger, and kept her place, 
And ever she kept the stars she bore 
Close to the stars of heaven. 

And this is the vessel 

That dared to wrestle. 

In one wild hour, 

With the many-handed giant Power 

That kept the gates and held the keys. 

Locking, unlocking, to those or these. 

The great world-waterways near and far ; 

That marshaled a thousand ships of war 

And was lord upon all the seas ! 

Amid the silence of men oppressed 

She burst as a voice from out the West, 

And, by the awful speech she hurled, 

Shook the wide deep, and shook the land. 

And shook the thrones of the kings of the world, 

Because she spoke of the might of right, 

And spoke to them all of the growing light. 

In a way they could hear and understand ! 

She dared with the daring of those v/ho die 

In noble endeavor, and that is why. 



RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION" 8 1 

Through smoke and flame and battle-roar 

And all that iron death could do, 

She ploughed her steadfast way so true, 

And never dropped the stars she bore, 

But always in place, near the stars of the sky, 

The banner of her country blew 1 

II 

Constitution — ominous name ! 
Written so large on time's hoar walls, 
And written in letters of blood and flame, 
And written to stand, whatever befalls, 
For God hath written it. And today 
The old is weighed ; it must pass away. 

Weighed and wanting. Break it afar. 

Break it to Kaiser and Sultan and Czar, 

What God hath purposed to make men free. 

The long, long-during wrongs that are 

Must yield to the rights that are to be. 

Till the world, and the world in its wideness then, 

Is owned and governed by common men. 

Oh, speed the time when the old will fall. 
When the new will rise and the old be done, 
When the million no more need serve the one 
Except as the one is servant of all ! 

6 



82 RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION'* 

Honor the vessel for her deeds and fame, 
Honor the deeds that touch cold hearts to flame. 
Honor the fame that lives and ever v^ill, 
Honor the vessel that through good or ill 
Wrought only honor for her borrowed name. 

Ill 

Break, silent morning, break and glow, 
Wreathe all the pleasant world in smiles ; 
Wake, gentle breezes, wake and blow 
Along the murmuring ocean aisles ; 
Let waiting sails be touched, and fill, 
And find the haven of their will. 

The Dome and the Monument — sentinels they, 

Watching the Puritan city and bay. 

And the streaming seas and the far away — 

Behold the silver thread of her track, 

And hear men ask, "Is she coming back?" 

The Old North Church, where the lanterns hung, 

The Old South Church, where the voices rung, 

Signal across to the Monument gray, 

And whisper it up to the Golden Dome, 

**0h yes, at last she is coming home ; 

And we were here when she sailed away." 

And all the great and silent few, 
That link the old things with the new, 



RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION" 83 

Talk through the morning, each to each, 

Of the larger matters of long ago, 

And say, in a semi-alien speech, 

Which only the dead in its fulness know : 

"She that fought for us, 

She that wrought for us, 

Fought for us, wrought for us all, so well, 

She shall come back to us, 

She shall be one of us. 

Here shall she dwell. 

Here, in her home and ours, and tell 

Of the right that will not always wait, 

Of justice that smites but does not hate, 

Of love and the sacrifice it brings, 

And of all the old heroic things 

That make men noble and nations great." 



Oh, well for the land where voices break 
From mouldering wood and crumbling stone 
To urge the present hour to make 
The glory of the past its own ! 
But ill for the land, oh, ill, ill, ill. 
If cold indifference gains the crown. 
Turns, and forgets the old renown, 
Letting those holy voices drown 
At last, and grow forever still! 



84 RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION'' 

IV 

Look, the ocean warrior comes ! 
Wave your banners, beat your drums, 
Thunder it over land and foam. 
Welcome, welcome, welcome home ! 

But who is this that comes forlorn 

Of sail and mast, so old, so worn, 

And marred, and scarred. 

And borne by a power not hers along. 

As age that is feeble by youth that is strong, 

An empty, ruinous, cumbersome shell, — 

Is this the vessel that wrought so well ? 

If, as the wise do ever hold. 

If it be life, true life, to give 

Even life's own self for noble ends, 

And, when the powers are spent, to live 

In that for which one gives and spends, 

Then better is the life grown old 

In such a service, though it creeps 

A silent shadow from place to place, 

Better, oh, better a thousand-fold 

Than that which hoards, and eats, and sleeps, 

Saves its dear self for self, and keeps 

The telltale freshness of its face. 



RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION" 8$ 

And this spent life of hers is found, 
Regathered as a living power, 
Wherever freedom holds the ground, 
Or manhood rules the hour ; 
Found in the laws that round us stand 
At every hearthstone in the land ; 
Found in the lifted arm that bars 
The invader from our sacred shore ; 
Ay, like that vanished ship of yore, 
Found in the imperishable stars ! 



Oak and cedar and pine 

And iron and copper — were these the whole ? 

Will dumb, dead things like these combine 

Ever, to make a ship of the line, 

Without the patriot sailor-soul ? 

T is the human touch alone that brings 
The life, and puts the tongue in things ; 
And this old vessel, although the wreck 
And shadow of the power she was, 
Is full of eloquent voice because 
Of the men who trod her deck. 

The glory that is round her shed, 
All glory born of battles won — 



86 RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION'' 

T is not of ship, or sail, or gun ; 
'T is of the man, when all is done, 
It is the man's, when all is said. 

VI 

And it was men, Ship of State, 

That fashioned thee and made thee great, 

And brought thee on thy perilous way, 

Through storms against thy bulwarks hurled. 

And left thee what thou art today, 

The envy of the nations of the world ! 

But, O my country, great and fair, 

Mark well the clouds that fill the air ; 

Shun the dark fate of them that dare 

And care no more, that, with averted head. 

Seek ease, and leave all glory with the dead ! 

Beware, beware, beware ! 

Beware the lust of office and of gold ; 

Breed men, strong men, like those strong men of old - 

Men whom base-born ambition can not lure, 

Who sway not with the rabble's fickle mood, 

But, steadfast in themselves, in motive pure. 

Love more than self their country's common good ; 

Men of that high, heroic altitude 

Of purpose which is seen and known afar, 

Large-minded, simple, patriotic men, 



RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION'' 8/ 

Who follow conscience ever like a star, 
And lift a nation to its place again ! 

O ye, who lived a life so true 
In days forever and ever gone, 
But somewhere even now live on. 
Come back, for we have need of you, 
Come from your far-off land today, 
O noble great ones, come away. 
And meet and mingle with us here, 
Unseen, though held forever dear, 
And fill us with the heavenly fire 
Of aspiration and desire 
To do and dare and some day be 
Found worthy of your company. 

VII 

Hark ! I hear the sunset gun ; 
Invisible hands are letting down 
The soft gray vail over harbor and town ; 
This memorable day is done. 

She is the nation's now, and here. 
Where, round the landscape which we love. 
Shapes more than human seem to move 
In the dim shadow and draw near. 
She, too, belongs, and has her part 



88 RETURN OF THE FRIGATE ''CONSTITUTION'' 

With the great memories born before, 
And is a memory in the heart 
With them forever and evermore. 

Here, as the days go streaming by 

And lengthen to unnumbered years, 

In quiet may the good ship lie, 

With her name and her fame and her great compeers 

And the glory that can not die. 



THE PASSING OF SPAIN FROM THE 
WESTERN HEMISPHERE 

THE Lord communed with His heart in heaven 
And said : "It has been My way 
To cancel at last the men or the States 

That sin and disobey. 
Four hundred years I have waited — four, 

And still they are starved and slain. 
That My name on earth be reverenced more, 
Shall I make an end of Spain ? " 

For the prayers rolled up about His throne. 

Like a cloud, from every side ; 
And vast the cloud of the witnesses — 

The souls of those who had died. 
Columbus himself was there ; said he : 

' ' I found her the virgin lands 
Of half the world ; she found for me 

The chains upon my hands." 



And the souls of her best citizens came, 
ds 

Sg 



Five hundred thousand strong, 



90 THE PASSING OF SPAIN 

To tell of the Inquisition fires 

And all that giant wrong. 
And the souls of the sons of the Netherlands came 

And said 't was thus and thus : 
*' Remember Philip and Alva's shame — 

Lord, how they butchered us ! " 

And the souls of the slain, from far away 

In Mexico and Peru, 
Cried to the Power that seeks and saves, 

" Good Lord, the charge is true ! " 
And the souls of them that suffered and fell 

In the islands of the main. 
Thousands on thousands, came to swell 

The awful guilt of Spain. 

Then said the Lord in His great sad heart : 

*' It shall no more endure ; 
If I rise in My might and make an end, 

My justice stands secure." 
And He motioned the seraphs that do His word, 

To fly to the earth and do ; 
And the flaming seraphs that bear the sword, 

In silence bowed and flew. 

They said as they flew : ** The earth is His 
To save, not the devil's to mar ; 



THE PASSING OF SPAIN 9I 

Some things are better than money is, 
And some things worse than war." 

The seraphs, as onward still they swept. 
Cried : ** Fear not ; it is well ; 

For this kind goeth not out except 
By sword and shot and shell." 

At last the darkening shadow drew 

Across the morning sun ; 
A shiver, as if presaging doom, 

Throughout the world did run. 
And when the cloud, so big with dread, 

Broke over Manila's bay. 
The far-off nations whispering said : 

**Hush ! Spain is passing away." 

Down through the Windward Passage, round 

The sweep of the southern seas. 
The cloud belched forth of its righteousness 

To heal sin's long disease. 
For hither and thither the seraphs went. 

Who ne'er bear sword in vain, 
And to heaven and earth their mission meant 

The passing away of Spain. 

When they sheathed the sword, and the guns 
grew cold, 



92 THE PASSING OF SPAIN 

And the desolate Isle was free ; 
When the ships that carried the fragments off 

Put sullenly forth to sea, — 
The eyes of every people and land 

Watched, silent and awed at the plain 
Irresistible pressure of God's right hand, 

The passing away of Spain. 



THE SPECTRES OF MARATHON 

HIST ! did you see him arise ? Did you mind 
How he rode in the moonlight away like the 
wind, 
And never a print of his horse's feet 
Was left on the turf behind ? 

I have somewhere read that the buried slain 
Are seen to arise from their graves again 
As spectres — arise at the midnight hour 
On the old Marathonian plain ; 

That often the lingering shepherd descries 
On the dim ^gean, in silent surprise, 
The phantom fleet of the coming foe 
Like a mist that shoreward flies ; 

And the form of Miltiades riding his round 
To awaken his men on the far-famed ground ; 
And then the old battle is fought once more — 
With arms that make no sound. 

Of trembling vapors the banners are, 
The spears are vapors, as vapors afar 

93 



94 THE SPECTRES OF MARA THON 

The Persians reel and retreat to their ships 
At the sign of the morning star. 

I have read that scarcely a night may be 
But this vision of ships sweeps in from the sea, 
And the horseman rides, and the Greeks arise, 
And the Persians — they always flee ! 

Oh, beautiful legend the Greeks have told 
Of a spot where freedom was saved of old ! 
Its meaning has widened from shore to shore. 
And its voices are manifold. 

In every land where the brave have died, 
Their deeds and memories ever abide ; 
They haunt the old graves and are spectres at times 
On the plain or the green hillside. 

T is not in vain, in the fields once red, 
That a nation's defenders are lying dead, 
Where the sentinel paces unseen on his beat 
And by greener tents instead. 

From their silent encampment underground 
They hear, and arise, and forever confound 
Their country's invader, although they strive 
With arms that make no sound. 



GREECE 

1897 

ONE nation against the many, 
The smallest among them all ; 
It will not take long for deciding — 

The small one must go to the wall. 
But hush ! while the winds are blowing 

These voices in from afar, 
It sounds as it often has sounded 
When God goes forth to war. 

'T is often the one and the many. 

And sometimes with proud command 
The many bring up their battalions 

To crush out the truth in a land. 
God laughs in His heaven to see them, 

And chooseth some little thing ; 
Remember the giant Goliath 

And the stripling with his sling. 

All honor to leader and people 
Who know that right makes might, 
95 



96 GREECE 

And that never a question was settled 

Until it was settled right. 
While some are cowardly asking 

How much may be won or lost, 
Thank God for the men like these men 

Who will not count the cost. 

Thermopylae in the mountains 

And Marathon by the sea ! 
Their spirit survives and is ever 

The spirit that makes men free. 
''Come back with your shield or upon it," 

Runs the word through field and town. 
God help the brave State that for justice 

Is daring to fight and go down ! 

But shame for the lordly great ones 

Who share the Arch-murderer's gain 
In their golden halls on the Neva, 

On the Spree, or the Thames, or the Seine ! 
And let them beware, and be ready 

For something more terrible far. 
If at last, in His wrath and His glory, 

God does go forth to war ! 



THE CITY OF VISION 



97 



THE CITY OF VISION 

IT does not crumble like others away, 
This dream-built City. A dream, did I say ? 
Yes, once it was John's ; it is mine to-day. 
And the world's forever and ever. 

Though men are selfish and fond of strife. 
And wrongs and sorrowful things are rife, 
The world dreams on of a different life. 
And a nobler, forever and ever. 

On the pale, sad face and the tattered gown 
And the trouble and shame of our earthly town 
The vision of what might be looks down, 
So pure and so silent, forever. 

A worthier life and fairer to see, 
A loftier purpose in you and in me, 
More brotherly conduct,— these might be, 
Might be both now and forever. 

Oh, the vision ! It streams over all we do. 
And the fierce light of it smites through and through; 
That light is the truth of the things that are true 
Forever and ever and ever. 

99 

LofC. 



100 THE CITY OF VISION 

God lives and reigns ; and the right lives too, 
Though little about it the old gods knev^ ; 
And love and duty ; all these are true 
Forever and ever and ever. 

Ah, God, how little our eyes discern, 
How very slowly we seem to learn, 
Of the great ideals of life that burn 
So near us forever and ever \ 



CO-OPERATION 



*' i^^OME," said the little Ether- Atoms, 

V^ "Let us cling together and march together. 
Millions and millions and millions are we ; 
Let us form and march like the waves of the sea, 
With shoulder to shoulder, hand linked in hand, 
Line behind line of us. Here we stand ! 
Steady, there ! Wait for the word of command. 
Steady, my comrades ! Is everything right ? 
Now, all as one of us, into the night ! " 
So they clung together and marched together, 
And the world was filled with light. 



**Come," said the little Vibrations-in-Air, 

" Let us cling together and work together. 

Starting not off on our separate tracks, 

But all within touch, that whatever each lacks 

The rest may supply, and that each, great or small. 

May something contribute — to soar, run, or crawl 



102 CO-OPERA TION 

Toward the one common end ; there is work for us 

all ; 
And mingling our efforts, the weak with the strong, 
Break we a path through the silence along ! " 
So they clung together and helped one another, 
And the world was filled with song. 

Ill 

** And now," said the children of men on earth, 
" Let us cling together, and work together. 
And help one another, and turn our words 
Into golden action, and sheathe our swords ! 
Let us tunnel the mountain, span the plain. 
Stretch hands to each other across the main. 
And each man's wealth be for all men's gain ; 
Then unto his neighbor let every one 
Say, ' Be of good courage,' and let the word run." 
So they clung together, and, lo, as in heaven 
His will upon earth was done ! 



GREATNESS 



WHAT makes a man great? Is it houses and 
land? 
Is it argosies dropping their wealth at his feet ? 
Is it multitudes shouting his name in the street? 
Is it power of brain ? Is it skill of hand ? 
Is it writing a book ? Is it guiding the State ? 
Nay, nay, none of these can make a man great. 



The crystal burns cold with its beautiful fire, 
And is what it is ; it can never be more ; 
The acorn, with something wrapped warm at the 
core. 

In quietness says, ** To the oak I aspire." 

That something in seed and in tree is the same ; 

What makes a man great is his greatness of aim. 



What is greatness of aim ? Your purpose to trim 
For bringing the world to obey your behest ? 
Oh no, it is seeking God's perfect and best, 

Making something the same both in you and in Him. 

Love what He loves, and, child of the sod. 

Already you share in the greatness of God. 



103 



THE IMMORTALS 

THINK ! the gods have been among us, seen us, 
marked our speech and tone, 
Touched the smallness of our natures with the large- 
ness of their own, 
Deigned to walk the path beside us, in our homes to 

eat and drink. 
They, the deathless, ever-blessed — O my comrades, 
do you think ? 

And we watched them, never dreaming they were 

more than common men, — 
Though we heard their gracious language, though 

again and yet again 
We beheld the generous fashion which they used in 

going through 
Every task and every duty given unto men to do, — 
Till the great occasion called them, showed their 

stature to us, drew 
Off the vail that hid their faces, as they vanished and 

we knew. 

104 



THE IMMORTALS IO5 

Hush ! they may be walking round us in the twi- 
light — who shall say ? — 

Others of the gods, and seeking if we give them yea 
or nay, 

We, the deaf ones, we, the blind ones, needing better 
ears and eyes 

To discern the great immortals through whatever thin 
disguise, 

That, amid the bhze of noonday or the evening's 
purple glow. 

We may heed them, know them, love them, ere these 
also rise and go. 



Y 



SIC VOS NON VOBIS 



ES, Roman Vergil said it right ; and 't is an old, 
old story : 

Not always he who does the deed is he who gets the 
glory. 

You toil not for yourselves, O bees — another takes 
the honey ; 

Not for yourselves, O human hands — another piles 
the money. 

The fame the poet true should wear, upon the rhyme- 
ster blazes ; 

The prophet wins the frowns of men, the mountebank 
their praises. 



But, noble soul, if thou must lose thy nobleness in 

striving, 
Content with only that on which some smaller soul is 

thriving ; 
If thou must yield thy larger gift, thine aspiration 

smother — 
For all the glories of the world, say, wouldst thou be 

that other ? 

io6 



SIC VOS NON VOBIS 10/ 

The Angel of the Presence, on the paths of men pur- 
suing, 

Makes virtue still its own reward, and wrong its own 
undoing ; 

Still Providence, with steady hand and purposes un- 
swerving, 

Bestows the worthiest gift of all upon the most 
deserving : 

The consciousness of noble aim, the rapture of en- 
deavor, 

These most are his who most deserves, and may be 
stolen never. 

Be faithful, toiler of the world ; where'er thy task is 

given, 
It needs thy best — on earth as in the altitudes of 

heaven. 
Work, caring much for excellence — for seeming, not a 

feather — 
So shalt thou know the fellowship that binds great 

souls together ; 
And, with the larger wisdom filled, retell the ancient 

story : 
Who does the deed shall have the meed ; let others 

take the glory. 



JUDAS 

" He then having received the sop went immediately out : and it 
was night." 

NO common night, but such as comes at last 
When faith is ended, — when that mighty star, 
Once flaming in the zenith of the soul, 
Loosed from its place drops lower and lower down, 
And, with the gradual spending of its power, 
Reaches the dim horizon, then expires. 
Never to kindle, never shine, again : 
The creeping doubt o'erwhelms and changes all. 

Thou art alone ; turn as thou wilt thy face. 
Or north or south or east or west, thou art. 
Thou with that troubled face, as one who hears 
The unfathomable wells of the great deep 
Roar in the darkness near him, knowing not 
At what false step they rise and gulp him down. 
The brook makes melody below the hill. 
But not for thee ; the moon and stars o'erhead 
Are shining, but they do not shine for thee ; 
Thou art outside the governance of God, 

108 



JUDAS 109 

Self-exiled, picking thy own way, poor soul, 
No rays of happy thoughts to prick the gloom, 
No daystar of a promise of the dawn, 
No trusted Presence going on before. 
Nor any voice now saying, " Follow me." 

Take that thine is and go upon thy way ; 
Thou hast it, thou hast earned it, it is thine ; 
It counts thee thirty pieces, take it all ; 
Thou wilt have need of it, it is thy all, 
The price of innocent blood,— oh, guard it well. 

For thou hast seen with what a gentle hand 

He touched blind eyes, deaf ears, restored the sick, 

Bound up the broken-hearted (His own heart 

Breaking with sorrow of its own the while), 

How spake such words as seemed like blessed rain 

Falling from heaven on the parched ground. 

He will no more : thy hand has drawn the cloud 

Around Him ; when tomorrow He shall pass, 

Bowed, spat on, called blasphemer,— He, 

The whitest soul that ever dwelt on earth,— 

And, as by chance, His silent eyes meet thine, 

Thou, friend and follower, wilt need comfort then : 

Look on thy silver, let that comfort thee. 

He chose thee, opened in thy life a door, 
Set visions in thine eyes, told thee His plans. 
And, trusting, loved thee with the love wherewith 



no JUDAS 

Loving His own He loves them to the end. 
Thou hast been standing in a sacred place — 
Thou knowest not these things ; thou mayest know 
Hereafter — in the circle hast thou stood, 
Where, not so much as one arm's length away, 
God hath Himself stood center ; one of those 
Whom, out of all that live or have lived, God 
Nearest hath drawn to show to them His face. 

Even so ; and they shall be His witnesses, 
Shall do His will, shall ever bear His light, 
And, as their great deeds widen through all time, 
Shall sit upon twelve thrones — eleven now, 
For one is empty — ^judging the whole world 
By the self-sacrifice of earnest lives, — 
James with the sword slain, Peter crucified, 
John preaching the new love a hundred years ; 
The rest as faithful, suffering for His sake 
And looking to behold His face again ; 
All leaving golden memories — and thou ? 
That name, that blackest shadow of a name, 
Moving in solemn whispers round the world 
From land to land, from age to age, that name 
Darkening all love, — Betrayer of his Friend. 
Thy silver, O thy silver, hold it fast. 

The great cause will go prospering down the years, 
Others be steadfast where thy heart has failed, 



JUDAS III 

Others receive what thou hast cast away. 
One pauses, makes an end ; another takes 
His bishopric ; God's purposes endure, 
God's instruments are ever at His hand. 
Yea, that which seemeth but a little thing 
Will grow and gather volume age by age, 
And set the spacious arches of all time 
A-tremble with the glory of the song 
Poured through them ; it will roll far on, 
And roll away from bounds of human sin, 
Indrawing to itself, — this great new song, — 
Whatever anywhere is good and true 
And beautiful, until full-orbed it fills 
The walls of that fair City like the sound 
Of many waters, and is heard afar. 
Ten thousand times ten thousand voices blent 
In one great voice, and saying evermore : 
''Blessing and honor, majesty and power, 
Be unto Him who sitteth on the throne, 
And to the Lamb forever and forever." 

Thou knowest not all this, but thou wilt know 

Hereafter — Lo, what javelin of light, 

Shot from the sky of undiscovered things. 

Hath rent the cloud and pierced thee to the heart .^ 

Thou lettest fall thy silver and art gone. 

Fled like a spirit in the trackless void, 



112 JUDAS 

Fled, gone, but not from thy own self, not gone 
From the pursuing Eye that looked on Cain ; 
In Heaven, in Hell, that Eye will look on thee. 

But what if, some day, fragments of the song 

Should faintly reach thee where thou wanderest. 

And thou shouldst pause, not knowing, turn, and creep 

A little nearer, listening, and shouldst find 

In long-deserted chambers of the soul 

An unremembered echo stir and wake. 

And visionary faces cross thy view 

Like faces seen in starlight, dimly known ; 

And, at the moment when a louder burst 

Lifted upon the air that sacred Name, 

What if as on a darkened screen were flashed 

Into thy mind the image of Himself, 

Sold in the garden with a treacherous kiss ! 

Perchance, guilt-smitten, dazed, thou wouldst not 

flee, — 
Not flee at once, — but, hands to eyes, creep on, 
Creep nearer still, a poor dumb spirit now, 
Hoping, from some lone corner in the shade, 
To see His face, then go away forever. 

And what if He, from out whose heart thy name 
Had never faded, should perceive, and thou, 
Still bowed, shouldst feel a light break round and 
grow, 



JUDAS 113 

Feel — daring not so much as look and see — 

A Being leave the holy throng and come, 

As doth the dawn with glory-mantled form 

Sending a splendor onward as it comes, — 

Shouldst feel each footstep pour more dreadful light 

Around thee trembling, knowing it was He ; 

Until again, not one arm's length away, 

He stood, bent o'er, then silence, then a voice — 

Oh, memory of the days of Galilee ! — 

The voice that searches swordlike in the soul, 

Through layer on layer of evil, to the core, 

And bids the man within us rise and live. 

Could such things be — I do not say they could ; 

1 only say that couldst thou see and know 

(Thine was the fault thou didst not see and know), 

Know thy own self, and Him, and what the love 

That dies not with man's faith, but still endures, — 

I say thou mightst be other than thou art ; 

Yea, of His faithful ones, perchance ; even thou. 

(Who dare affirm it, or, in his own heart. 

Deny it thus, not knowing all God's plan ?) 

For thou, of all that ever lived on earth, 

Art one to bear burned deep into thy soul — 

Could such things be — the sad eternal truth, 

That it were better never to have sinned. 

Never have sinned, than sinned and been forgiven. 

8 



IN MEMORIAM 
T. C. P. 

SKIES were not yet red with sunset, far ofif still the 
evening bell, 
Only sights and sounds of midday eye and ear could 

seem to tell. 
And we knew not that our greeting was the greeting 
of farewell, 

Did not know, in our rejoicing, that the hour had 

waxed so late. 
That the tides were sobbing seaward which can neither 

turn nor wait, 
And already in our presence stood the Opener of the 

Gate. 

Thin the vail that hides the future we have never 

seen nor can. 
And that future somehow mingles strangely in the 

life of man, 
While we see in part, and only see in part, the Father's 

plan. 

114 



IN MEMORIAM II5 

Every life hath its completeness — Are there not twelve 

hours still 
In the day ? — and whosoever makes his own the 

Master's will, 
Living, dying, staying, going, doth the circle all 

fulfill. 

Friend of ours, we did not tell thee all we might have 

told that day; 
Many another thing we cherished in our heart of 

hearts to say. 
Had we known it was expedient thou so soon shouldst 

go away. 

We were looking for achievement, and the victory 

had been won ; 
For the golden years of service — with the sands so 

nearly run; 
Yea, we thought it the beginning, when God said thy 

work was done. 

We shall not forget thee — never, while the way before 

us towers ; 
Something from thy life in passing touched the inner 

springs in ours. 
Thou henceforth art in alliance there with God's 

uplifting powers. 



Il6 IN MEMORIAM 

Thou art here ; lo, thou art yonder, where the heavenly 

seasons roll, 
Where in light and life immortal ends the pathway of 

the soul, — 
One hand beckoning, and the other resting on the 

shining goal. 



THE DEAD TEACHER 

Professor Packard, of Bowdoin College, fell dead while walking on 
the beach at Squirrel Island, only three days after he had presided at 
the Commencement exercises. These lines were read at the funeral. 

AH ! but yesterday we saw him there in the famil- 
iar place, 
Where he welcomed all as children with his old-time 

courtly grace ; 
And we knew not it was Heaven that was shining on 
his face. 

Light was nearer than we thought it, for today we 

come and find 
He has passed beyond the shadows which had made 

our eyes so blind ; 
And his more than fourscore summers are a golden 

trail behind. 

Walking by the narrow margin that divides the sea 

and land 
Of the Here and the Hereafter, he beheld, upon the 

strand, 
Words of One, who, as aforetime, stooped and wrote 

upon the sand. 

117 



Il8 THE DEAD TEACHER 

Two there were that walked together ; they com- 
muned, as friend with friend, 

On the mysteries, it may be, only angels comprehend ; 

One, the Christ, wrote with his finger; one, the Chris- 
tian, read — "The End." 

Silent do his books await him on their shelves in long 

array, 
But his book of life is ended and is silent now as 

they, 
And will henceforth stand among them to be seen and 

read alway ! 

What thou wert, O silent teacher, what thou wert 

and still thou art, 
Men inherit and will cherish ; we possess the better 

part, 
We, thy pupils, in the fibers of the living brain and 

heart. 

Thou art happy ! Thou, discerning from the summit 

of thy years. 
Long hast seen the promise over rolling mist of doubts 

and fears, — 
Seen the vision of the future, and thou dost not need 

our tears. 



THE DEAD TEACHER II9 

Sleep ! the peace of God upon thee — sleep ! and let 

the heavenly signs 
Hold their ways in solemn silence till the world's great 

morning shines, 
Where thou restest from thy labors in the hearing of 

the pines ! 



THE TREE AND THE STAR 

May 14, 1900 

SAID the tree upon earth to the star in the sky 
"She sleeps, and is here at my feet ; 
She walked in my shadow in days gone by, 
And her deeds and her life were sweet." 

Said the star in the sky to the tree upon earth : 
"She dwells in my home far above 

Thy dark little world of the home of her birth ; 
She was born for the light and for love." 

O tree, and O star, she was all that you say, 
And her soul like a star did shine ; 

Yet little you know of God's great way : 
She is here in this heart of mine. 



120 



ALL SOULS' EVE 

THE river drags across the plain 
Its winding line of black ; 
But far above I see again 
The ever shining track. 

silent dead, O happy souls, 
I dare not call you back ! 

Before my eyes a vision drew 
Like sunlight out of space ; 

1 fancied in the shadow grew 

One dear familiar face, — 
I felt a breath, 1 heard a voice 
Of infinite sweet grace. 

Beat not so loud, O heart of mine, 
Be calm, O wandering will. 

The wind is past, the talking pine 
Hath whispered and is still. 

All here is as the marbles are 
That glimmer on the hill. 



122 ALL SOULS' EVE 

But, lo, the singing tides above 
Grow full and do not slack ; 

There mind has light, and heart has love, 
With never stint or lack. 

Life bears me thither, silent dead; 
I will not call you back. 



IN DIVERS TONES 



123 



THE GOD OF THE GATE 

SILENT, while beneath his arch 
Still the long processions march, 
With his gaze forevermore 
On the after and before, 
Janus, in serene estate, 
Keepeth watch above the gate. 

On his face the morning falls 
Golden-red from eastern walls ; 
Evening's solemn splendor dies 
Last of all in his clear eyes. 
His the vision wherein blend 
The beginning and the end. 

Long has been the trodden way 
Since the breaking of the day ; 
Many and many a year will run 
Ere the final task be done. 
Past and future at his feet 
Like two mighty spirits meet. 
125 



126 THE GOD OF THE GATE 

Through yon archway Caesar rolled ; 
Wheels and emperor now are mold, 
Armies fallen into dust, 
Shouts to silence, swords to rust, 
While the god of soon and late 
Watches still above the gate. 

Realms of silence deep and vast 
Are the future and the past ; 
And the god that dwells between, 
Seeing what is yet unseen, 
Keeps their secret, — 't is his task ; 
Mine to wait and not to ask. 

Quickly will the written scroll 
In the hands of Time unroll ; 
Soon enough shall 1 behold 
What is new become the old. 
Hopeful, reverent, I bow 
At the gate of here and now. 

Father Janus, if thou may, 
Let a blessing crown my way ; 
On from what was dear to me 
Into days that are to be, 
Knowing not the gift of fate, 
Once again I pass thy gate. 



OPPORTUNITY 

OH, well for him who can discern 
What thoughts may grow to noble deeds. 
Who has the power to see and learn 

His blessings slumbering in the seeds ! 
Oh, well for him who understands 
The silent voices, beckoning hands, 
Nor fears to follow them to some good fate 
Which else lies evermore within the unopened gate ! 



127 



THE SWORD 

A KEEN-EDGED sword in Somebody's hand ; 
And keen the edge of the pain it brings ; 
Long, long ago it thrust and pricked 

And prodded about at the roots of things. 
It searched and troubled the hollows dark, 
It troubles the world and stirs up strife, 
It troubles the beast of the field and man : 
The name of this troublesome sword is — Life. 

The oyster lay like a lump content, 

Content with himself and his mud and slime ; 
The sword thrust under him till at last 

He said, '' There is nothing to do but climb." 
A million of years — for oysters are slow 

And only ask to be let alone — 
He climbed ; he climbed clean out of his shell, 

And, lo ! was a fish with a good backbone. 

The fish was happy ; the fish loved ease 
And lazily paddled the summer sea. 

With never a thought of his home in the mud. 
And never a dream of what must be. 

128 



THE SWORD 129 

But pain ran through him, he knew not why ; 

The sword was there in Somebody's hand ; 
It pricked him once from the slime to the sea, 

It pricked him now from the sea to the land. 

He stood a beast with four great feet, 

And a yard of tail to follow him round ; 
Content he was with a beast's content 

To eat and drink and lie on the ground. 
But the sword was after him still, and still 

The old pain racked as it racked before ; 
The ease he loved seemed never so far, 

And all he could do was to climb some more. 

For many and many a myriad years 

The poor beast climbed ; the way was blind ; 
He wore his yard of tail to a stump, 

Then dropped the stump in the woods behind. 
His paws grew hands and he stood erect ; 

One morning, the sun just over the brinks 
There flashed a spark through his beastly brain^ 

And he said, '' I 'm a man, for I can think ! " 

And man loves ease ; the Lord knows that ; 

For oyster and fish and beast combine 
To smother his new-born soul of fire 

And drag him back to the earth and the brine. 



I^o THE SWORD 



But pain and trouble take hold on man ; 

The terrible sword doth prick and prod ; 
He finds no peace, for there is no peace 

For man till he reaches the utmost— God. 



ORPHEUS 

HEAR that loneiy-hearted bird 
In the cypress calling so ! 
Hear its oft-repeated word, 

^'Orpheus," ''Orpheus," sad and low, 
Floating outward through the shadows — 
Can it be a bird or no ? 

Where the poet's grave was cold, 
And the low branch bended o'er. 

Sang the nightingale of old 

Of the Voice that sang no more ? 

Is it true, or but a story 
From the marvelous days of yore ? 

Ay, such glory is not past ; 

Many a poet finds the same ; 
O'er his voiceless dust at last 

Sings the golden tongue of fame- 
Something in the songs he left us 

Uttering still the singer's name. 



131 



THE CITY OF THE VIOLET CROWN 

HE is dead and gone, with his wonderful skill, 
The poet who once by a sound 
Made bowlder and birch-tree dance to his will, 
And a city arise from the ground. 

One night, where the haunted Cephissus pours 

Its shrunken wave to the sea, 
Some flute-notes, wafted along the shores, 

Were the same as Amphion's to me. 

For they built thee again in my quiet dreams, 

O City of the Violet Crown ; 
As silent as rises the mist from the streams. 

Thy walls rose over the town. 

On the gleaming height where the Parthenon lay, 

Like a beautiful changeless cloud, 
Stood the maiden goddess arrayed for the fray, 

Majestic, and silent, and proud. 

Her brazen shield in the sunlight shone 
Far out on the trembling blue, 

132 



THE CITY OF THE VIOLET CROWN 1 33 

As a welcoming star, as a sign well known, 
To the home-returning crew. 

The seals were broken on urn and grave, 

And many a vanished face 
Was seen once more in the living wave 

Of the street or the market-place. 

But all the while it was envious Death 

Still masking ; the vision of peace 
Became as a fabric upheld by a breath, — 

I feared that my fluter would cease. 

Ill-omened fear ! That moment 1 found 

The faces beginning to pass ; 
All faded, as phantoms fade underground 

When the dawn breathes over the grass. 

The dawn had risen, the broken spell 

I could not recover then ; 
Time's withering glance on thy temples fell. 

And thou wert a ruin again. 

Nay, not all ruin ! In air and sky, 

In thy old historic hill, 
A sense of something that cannot die 

There lingered, and lingers still, — 



134 THE CITY OF THE VIOLET CROWN 

A gleam of the light that forever will be 

On all the nations afar, 
Like the trail that falls over the summer sea 

At the set of the Titan star. 

Oh, well to remember the deeds and days 
Of thy past, handed silently down, 

While the sun on thy forehead of mountains lays, 
Fair city, the Violet Crown ! 



THE WIZARD POET 

IN the dust of ages old 
Sleeps the legend men have told 
Of Vergilius and his skill : 
How he, wicked or divine, 
Wrought by secret spell and sign 
Many marvels to his will ; 

How he breathed the vital flame 
Through a pulseless statue's frame, 

So that when the night's eclipse 
Left its face it spake aloud, — 
And no idle words or proud 

Ever passed its marble lips ; 

How he made a lamp to light 
All the city streets by night ; 

Made and rode a copper mare, 
And from Babylon to Rome 
Brought the Sultan's daughter home. 

On a bridge built in the air. 
135 



136 THE WIZARD POET 

Necromancer, poet, sage, 
He bewildered all his age ; 

Men, on other business bent, 
Lingered when he waved his hand. 
And not one could understand 

What the subtle magic meant. 

Ah ! his books upon my shelves 
Hold the secret in themselves 

Of the marvelous art he knew ! 
When we read, the written signs 
Luminous grow in all the lines, — 

What he did his books still do ! 

In their silence and disguise 
They are genii that arise, 

Building bridges with their hands ; 
And our life's unending quest 
Here may pause awhile and rest 

In the lap of golden lands. 

Shepherd pipes around us sing, 
Branches musically swing 

In the west wind's cooling tides ! 
Then the shadows of the night, 
Dropping earthward in their flight. 

Darken o'er the mountain sides ! 



THE WIZARD POET 1 37 

In the distance seem to be 
Boats upon the toiling sea, 

Oars adrip with silver foam ; 
Wave-tossed men of Troy almost 
Grasp the e'er receding coast, 

Dreaming of their lofty Rome. 

So the poet hath his will, 
Working out his marvels still, 

Makes us linger as we read ! 
In our hearts a statue stands, — 
White and pure its lips and hands, 

Symbolizing word and deed ; 

And the statue, as it were, 
Is the poet's character. 

Spotless in that age of wrong. 
Did he travel in the air ? 
Ay, the bridge suspended there 

Was the marvelous Bridge of Song ! 

And the greatness of his name 
Pierces, with a silent flame, 

Death and the sepulchral damp ; 
Somehow, still it seems to light 
Rome in all her streets tonight. 

And is a perpetual lamp. 



138 THE WIZARD POET 

Statue, bridge, and lamp unfold 
Deeper meanings than of old : 

His was no uncanny art ; 
He but used the spell and sign 
Of the poet's right divine, — 

Wizard of the human heart ! 



THE SILENT CITY 

The words " Conticuere omnes," from the first line of the second 
book of the y^neid, were found scrawled on a wall excavated at 
Pompeii. 

SILENT they all became " — strange words to be 
Uncovered in the dust, where ages keep 
Their ruins old and deep, — 
Where, in that buried city by the sea, 
In homes they builded and no longer need, 
Silent all are indeed ! 

Did he whose pencil traced the letters there, 
Do it for love of the Vergilian phrase 
In those far distant days ; 
Or see, by some presentment, in the air 
The shadow of the undiscerning fate 
That laid all desolate ? 

These silent people, — these, whose names are fled, 

Who day by day walked this deserted place 

And saw each other's face. — 

We need not ask what human lives they led. 

Or with what prayers in that wild storm of flame 

Silent they all became. 

139 



140 THE SILENT CITY 

Men of our kind, they loved the earth and air 
And sense of being ; loved to buy and sell ; 
Loved pleasure overwell ; 
Knew^ hope, ambition, disappointment, care ; 
Called oft for help on some all-pitying Name ;- 
So, till the silence came. 

Out of the dust that slumbers on the ground 
What sounds unto the poet's ears arise. 
What visions to his eyes ! 
Then in the Present's loud, tumultuous sound 
He finds what silences, where men and walls 
Are as the dust that falls ! 



TO AN ARCHEOLOGIST 

METHINKS you have come rather late, Sir, 
The banquet is over. Begin 
And knock, if you choose, at the gate. Sir, — 
I fear they will not ask you in. 

Listen ! the music is ended, 

The lamps in the chambers are dead ; 
With silence the voices have blended. 

The king and his guests are abed. 

You might have come hither from Gades 

(Permit me to add) in the West, 
Since the lords said good-night and the ladies 

Went smiling away to their rest. 

The watchers and wards of the towers 
Are asleep at their posts, or away — 

Not heard there at least for some hours, — 
Oh, the soundest of sleepers are they ! 

But try with your rattle and clatter, 
And — what, will you break through the wall. 



142 TO AN ARCHEOLOGIST 

And take what you want and no matter ? 
Not a guest, but a thief, after all ! 

Well, perhaps you are right ; 't is a pity 
That treasure should stay here so long 

Unused in this sleepy old city, — 
Perhaps you are doing no wrong. 

For though with the smile of a Caesar 

You carry your cartfuls away, 
I warrant you Tiglath-Pilezer 

Could give you the odds in his day 

As a thief ! Why, the arch you are under 
Very likely was built — if you choose 

To remember his failings — of plunder 
He took from his neighbors, the Jews. 

His treatment of them was as shabby 
As yours is of him, you discern ; 

When they dig up your Westminster Abbey, 
T will even ; we all have our turn. 

But reflect, as you dig it and dump it — 
Your spadeful, I mean — in your raids, 

How a blast from the ultimate trumpet 
Would outrival a million of spades ! 

This silent and slumbering nation 
In layers so deep in the ground, 



TO AN ARCHEOLOGIST I43 

All the pulverized population 
Which the breezes are blowing around ; 

The chariot wheels and the horses, 
The soldiers, the captains, the men 

Once kings but now innocent corses, 
I 'm certain could startle you then ! 

Remember, I say, if you must keep 

At work at your pilfering so. 
What a stir there would be in your dust-heap 

If the trumpet should happen to blow. 



INVOCATION TO HORACE 

From a poem read at a dinner of the Bowdoin Alumni Association, 
of Boston. 

IF ghosts come back, — and some ghosts do, — 
We would invite the ghost of you, 
Horatius Flaccus, poet. 
Put your old harp in when you pack, 
Because a song is what we lack ; 
You, Quintus, must bestow it. 

We know you 're in the place below, 
Where Dante put you long ago, 

And whence he would not lose you ; 
But, if our need you let him know. 
Perhaps for half an hour or so 

He kindly will excuse you. 

Yes, bards are plenty, I am sure ; 
Their barding, yes, is rather poor — 

Just that, whate'er our choice is ; 
Nor many now the ears that hear. 
When goose and swan in song appear, 

The difference in their voices. 
144 



INVOCATION TO HORACE 1 45 

But yours men know, Imperial Swan, — 
The sweetness, sense, with which anon 

You mingle fact and fable ; 
You are of all, beyond excuse. 
The fittest man to introduce 

The Muses at the table. 

You loved good friends, you loved good cheer, 
You 'd love the way we do things here. 

You dearly loved a dinner ; 
Come back and sing ; if thin your song, 
Because you 've been a ghost so long. 

Mine surely must be thinner. 

Don't fear we '11 mention, though we can. 
The lie you told the only man 

You looked on as your foeman, — 
I mean that everlasting bore, 
At whom we know you inly swore 

In Latin, like a Roman. 

The day 1 stood where, in the past. 
You saw the last of him at last. 

My heart towards you did soften ; 
Your tomb was reared by Tiber's side — 
The bore's ? Alas, he never died. 

For I have seen him often ! 



146 INVOCATION TO HORACE 

Sometimes he calls to sell me books. 
Insure my life like his, and looks 

The image of persuasion ; 
Sometimes, I know not why, he tries, 
In thinnest of all thin disguise. 

As poet of occasion ! 

Come back and save us, mighty ghost, 
Come, spare the guest, and spare the host ; 

Your forms you need not vary, — 
An ode, an epode, you may bring, 
A satire, almost anything ; 

Bring Carmen Seculare. 

Alas ! good friends, he will not come ; 
He stands within the shadow, dumb, 

Face grinning, arms akimbo ; 
No breath of his on my small sail ; 
He waits to see me try and fail — 

T is I that squirm in limbo ! 



LONGFELLOW 

At about the time Bowdoin College received a replica of the bust 
placed in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, the editors of The 
Orient commemorated that event and also the poet's birthday by issu- 
ing a Longfellow number, for which, at their request, these lines were 
written. 

OH, what to sing or say of him whom both the 
Englands crown, 
When time is past for verse or voice to add to his 
renown ! 

There in the ancient Abbey, with the glory that it 

brings, 
The features we have known look down upon the 

dust of kings. 

The mighty spirits of the past seem, in their shadows 

dim, 
To move among themselves and make a welcome 

space for him. 

'T is vain to praise, and vainer yet his wondrous art to 

tell; 
The arrows of his song are hid in hearts that know 

it well. 

147 



148 LONGFELLOW 

But when I see the wave of fame has made how 

wide a ring, 
What shores his name has touched, oh, then I proudly 

try to sing, 

That here, in this familiar place, first rose his magic 

strain ; 
Like us he loved the air and light that clothe the fields 

of Maine. 

I sing that silently, dear land of river and of pine, 
A mother's joy pervades thy breast remembering he 
is thine. 

Thou never wilt or canst forget the year and month 

and day. 
Never forget, till time's slow wave shall wear itself 

away. 

For, though the singer's feet have passed beyond thy 

bourne so far. 
Beyond all bounds that men have known, beyond the 

sunset bar, 

To thee, of all the spots on earth, he left his great 

renown. 
And thou art still the mother home of him the 

Englands crown, 



WHITTIER 

1887 

With the calm patience of the woods I wait 
For leaf and blossom when God gives us spring, 

Whittier. 

SURELY, Great Heart, though leaf and blossom 
come. 
And the long splendor of the Mayday suns, 
Thy need is less : we are the needy ones 
Whose hearts sing little and are mostly dumb. 

They tell me — 1 have never seen thy face — 

They tell me that thy days have somehow passed 
Into November, that old age at last 

Has stolen upon thee with its silent pace. 

I do not know. It seems a little while 
To thee, no doubt ; a little while it were, 
Since in thy heart God's gift began to stir, 

Since stretched the way before thee, mile on mile ; 

A little while to live, if counted years, 
Such as we spend in earthly toil and strife, 

149 



1 50 WHITTIER 

Were taken as the measure of a life ; 
But God's great music trembles in our ears : 

Who lives for truth shall live as long as truth. 
Thou hast grown old ? If this be age, I ween 
Of all the things which I have ever seen 

It is the likest to immortal youth. 

Like a great voice thy still increasing song 
Goes throbbing up and down the vales and hills 
Of our New England, and forever thrills 

The people's hearts to make them true and strong. 

Thy need is less. Let varying seasons bring 
Green leaf or brown, all seasons are thine own ; 
For from thy heart the birds have never flown : 

Whate'er the time, God always gives thee spring. 



A SALUTATION 

POET, that salutest Vergil with a strain so tender, 
sweet, and clear. 
It might almost pierce the shadows, Orpheus-like, 
and charm his spirit ear ; 

Merlin of the prophets ! seeing back and forward 

through the aisles of time, 
Building up its golden visions into palaces of stately 

rhyme ; 

Lover of the ancient legend — lo, Ulysses on his island- 
throne. 

And the sorrowful CEnone wandering in the lovely 
vale alone ! 

Thou that singest Arthur's kingdom and the sin of 

faithless Guinevere, 
Enid's woe, the knightly circle, Galahad without 

reproach or fear ; 

Thou that liftest life and duty upward into something 

fair and great. 

Honoring ever every virtue that will glorify the home 

or State ; 

151 



152 A SALUTATION 

Voice, that in heroic measure praisest love and noble 
womankind, — 

How at last the heart will triumph over all the splen- 
dors of the mind ; 

Telling, in the sailor-story, of a love outlasting all the 

years. 
With its pain and self-denial, — fathoming the well 

of human tears ; 

Singing faith, undying friendship, sorrow, and the 

power of Christ to save, — 
Molder of the grandest music ever uttered o'er a 

lonely grave ; 

Name by blameless language guarded, even as her 

lofty chalk-white wall 
Guards thine England, while around thee time's broad 

billow thunders to its fall : — 

Now that winter's breath is blowing and our day in 

narrower circle runs. 
And again the great Orion marching westward, belted 

with his suns. 

Warns, as with a voice that travels over roaring waste 

and peopled lands, 
That the birth of Christ is near us and the solemn 

years are clasping hands, — 



A SALUTATION 153 

We salute thee, Laurel-wearer, dwelling in thy happy 

Northern Isle, 
We from out a newer England sundered thence by 

many a rolling mile ; 

We salute thee with an echo feebly drawn from thy 
majestic line, 

Whom the lords of life have dowered with the master- 
gift we hold divine: 

For thy voice doth ''like a fountain" in the barren 

world rise clear and strong, 
Dear to English hearts, and ever dear to those v/ho 

cherish English song. 



THE RETURN 

And may there be no moaning of the bar 
When I put out to sea. 

Tennyson. 

THE shadow far and wide ; 
All sound hath died, 
And Something felt but seen not from the shore, 
Nor moved by any sail nor any oar, 
Went outward with the tide. 

No moaning of the bar ; 

But far, oh, far 

The silent ship has gone upon its way 

Into the space that lies beyond our day, 

Beyond our evening star. 

Thence came it at our need ; 

It bore a seed 

From out the bosom of the Shadowy Sea, 

Which grew, and filled the whole world gloriously 

With flower of light indeed ! 

No sadness of farewell. 

No voice, no bell. 

The heart too full for aught but silence, when 

The great soul turns to seek and find again 

Its home where great souls dwell. 



154 



SONNETS 



155 



HESPERIDES 

SINK, lovely day, and fold thy wings of gold 
Around the islands of the western seas, 

The far-off, beautiful Hesperides ; 
For there the waves, by temperate winds controlled, 
Sing to the shores forever. Sink and fold 

Thy wings above their golden-fruited trees 

And quiet gardens, and the sinless ease 
Of them that grow no longer weak or old. 
They that dwell there have borne life's little pain ; 

They were as we are, but shall weep no more. 
Fly, lovely day, and drop below the main 

Where waits for me a welcome at the door. 
I follow when the Boatman comes again, 

Soon shall I hear his keel grate on the shore. 



157 



VENICE 

ONLY a cloud, — far off it seemed to me 
No habitable city, — when, behold, 

Came gradual distinctions in the fold 
Of tremulous vapor shadowing things to be ; 
Forms whether of wave or air rose silently 

O'er quiet lanes of water, caught the gold 

Of the Italian sunset ; and thus rolled 
The vail from off the Bride of the Blue Sea. 
Alas, the irrecoverable dream ! 

Cathedral, palace, all things all too soon 
Melted like faces in a troubled stream, 

And, looking backward over the lagoon, 
I saw the phantom city faintly gleam 

As mist blown seaward underneath the moon. 



158 



FORO ROMANO 

THE tide gone out : that long and passionate roar 
Of life, once heard throughout the world, has 
passed 

With all its burdens far into the vast 
And into silence to return no more. 
We only see a pitiable store 

Of stones, rent columns, crumbling walls, that last 

A little longer, — outworn glories cast 
Like wreckage on a melancholy shore. 
And is this all ? Did Rome herself withdraw 

Forever too on that outgoing tide ? 
Lo, in the vision her own poet saw 

Extending o'er the nations far and wide, 
Rome is the mighty spirit of power and law 

Filling the earth and destined to abide. 



159 



SPHINX 

HER wings are folded in the plain that lies 
Like a vast shield upturned to every star. 

She sits as silent as God's mountains are, 
Forever watching with calm solemn eyes 
The white worlds in the shadow, as they rise 

And pass in slow procession, and afar 

Dip o'er the verge of the horizon's bar 
Into the depths of unfamiliar skies. 
So, ever by this lonely watcher's gaze 

The race of men are filing with the rest, 
Stars, systems, all : Whence, whither, lie their ways ? 

Unto what other morning in the west ? 
She asks with mute cold lips, but ne'er betrays 

Her riddle, and no man has ever guessed. 



160 



TO WILLIAM WATSON 

AFTER READING " THE PURPLE EAST " 

ENGLAND is cold, thou sayest, and the frost 
Has gathered thick and hard upon the land ; 

In ears that hear, but do not understand, 
A stricken people's death-cry seemeth lost. 
Yet underneath, where roots are twined and crossed, 

A great life throbs and climbs, by whose command 

The nation some day with a mighty hand 
Will right this wrong, nor fear the dreadful cost. 
Voice of that better England, thou dost smite 

The laggard conscience with a kingly rod ; 
Prophet and poet in thy soul unite ; 

And thy brave song, now vibrant far abroad, 
Grows more and more attuned to truth and right 

And all the awful harmonies of God. 



i6z 



MARS 

AND who is this that comes with awful pace, 
Red-handed like a slayer, and appears 

To glare the fiercer for my sudden fears ? 
Gradivus, worshiped in the land of Thrace ! 
The Strider, armed with battle-ax and mace. 

Before whose step the cornfields sprout with spears, 

And clouds for rain drop blood and women's tears 
Till earth wears stains which heaven may scarce 

efface. 
T is he that battled with a mighty hand 

And led the hosts, when in their courses so 
The stars fought Sisera ; he bears the brand 

That levels noble cities, and his blow 
Doth make a shudder run from land to land. 

Thank God, his hour is passing ; let him go. 



162 



THE SONNET 

ART gave it us as Nature doth a shell : 
It holds the murmurings of the infinite deep 

Of mind and thought ; through its small arches 
creep 
The voices born about the sacred well ; 
Here love and life their secret visions tell ; 

And souls of old forgotten things that sweep 

In music low along the shores of sleep, 
Do haunt its chambers with some potent spell. 
Whate'er the seas have whispered to the lands 

A shell repeats ; this sings the heart's own lay. 
But when 1 raised it dripping from the sands 

To bear it to my cabinet, woe the day ! 
The tiny treasure brake within my hands. 

And all the music fled from it away. 



163 



VIGILS 



165 



VIGILS 



ONCE more the voice of time I hear 
In that lone bell across the snow, 
Twelve frosty echoes, blow on blow. 
The " Ave ! Vale ! " of the year. 

Ah, God, how fleet the years go by, 
Like ripples in a failing stream 
That leap and sing, and flow and gleam, 

Then pass, and leave the channel dry ! 

And, in the round our lives must keep, 
How much to do, how little done ! 
We wake and toil from sun to sun, 

From star to star we pause and sleep. 

We sleep, we toil, but from the shore 
The Deep at last recalls its wave ; 
We spend the little span we have. 

And then we sleep for evermore. 

167 



108 VIGILS 

II 

Nay, fling the window wide ; you wrong 
Your birthright by so dark a doubt ; 
You '11 find a larger air without 

And wholesome thoughts and heaven's song. 

There shines Orion, as of old, 
With sword and belt of suns afar. 
While at his feet the tiny star 

We call our home lies dim and cold. 

The glowing map of night reveals 
Its circling orbs upon their way ; 
The world is turning ; watch and pray ; 

Hear music in the mighty wheels. 

Let faith, fore-dreaming of the goal 
That summons all the flying years. 
Hear, round the vast mysterious spheres, 

The outmost one forever roll. 

The God-sphere, holding each in place, 
So that the song rolls, and a jar 
In earth or the remotest star 

Can lend no discord, but a grace. 



VIGILS 169 

III 

To toil and sleep — is that the whole ? 
Is even all the boundless dark 
Enough to quench the smallest spark ? 

Can aught but sin o'erwhelm the soul? 

In part, by what we feel and see, 
We know the Eternal Mind and Heart, 
And we must learn, who know in part, 

To trust Him for the things to be. 

To Him who marks the sparrow's fall 
Nothing is great, or small, or strange ; 
Death has its hour, and life its change, 

And runs the love of God through all. 

Help us, O Lord, to bear Thy love : 
Thy love is great : bend Thou our will 
To Thy own law that guides us still 

And guides the wandering lights above. 



HYMN FOR THE CLOSING YEAR 

OTHOU who sealest up the past, 
The days slip from us, and the years 
Grow silent with their hopes and fears ; 
'T is Thine to keep all things at last. 

We have not done the things we would, 
A blotted page we render back ; 
And yet, whate'er our work may lack, 

Thy work goes on, and Thou art good. 

Thou movest in the moving years ; 

Wherever man is, there Thou art, 

To overrule his feebler part. 
And bring a blessing out of tears. 

We know what blessings had their birth 
In Thy great purpose, and we see 
What evil customs touched by Thee 

Are moldering ruins in the earth. 

Thy hand has been in every age. 
To shape the ways of men, and teach 
170 



HYMN FOR THE CLOSING YEAR 171 

The generations, each to each, 
To leave a nobler heritage. 

I know the word is in Thy breath 
That guides the wheels of time ; I know 
'T is Thou that guidest them, although 

They bear me toward the Vale of Death. 

And as the silent seasons pass 

Along their well appointed way. 

Nor any hand is raised to stay 
The falling sands, the emptying glass, 

I own Thy promise, for I fmd 
In all Thy dealings evermore 
Thou teachest that the things before 

Are better than the things behind. 

A nobler lot awaits the soul 

Than that of dying star and sun ; 

Our lives do not in circles run, 
But ever onward to a goal. 

Thou, Opener of the years to be, 
Let me not lose in woe or weal 
The touch of that strong hand I feel 

Upholding and directing me. 



PATMOS 

THE blue above immeasurably deep, 
And blue around for many a shimmering mile, 
Where sky and sea unbosom all they keep, 

In open secret, to the lonely Isle, — 
Yea, as of old, when Christ's Apostle came. 
And saw, and heard — there all things are the same. 

O Isle of Visions, shall there be again 

The open vision ever ? Are the days 
So evil that among all living men 

None may interpret now the light that strays 
Still earthward through the thin and wavering screen — 
None say, in rapt assurance, "\ have seen" ? 

The cloud-built City, — built of all things rare, — 
The many voices breaking on the shore, 

The trumpets that run, blowing, down the air, — 
These baffle our dull senses ; evermore 

We look and listen, and remain unstirred. 

Waiting for some one who has seen and heard. 

Perhaps he sleeps ; perhaps the dream is on 

Of things that were, and are, and still shall be, — 
172 



PATMOS 173 

Stars, swords, white horses, pierced hands ; anon 

The River and Tree of Life, and no more sea. 
He will proclaim it, ere the age go quite, — 
Our Poet, when the Angel whispers, "Write." 

For he will fmd in common sights and sounds — 
More keen than we to listen and to look — 

Outflowings from the vast eternal bounds. 
And he shall write them in his own new book, 

And be the prophet-poet of our choice, 

O Island of the Vision and the Voice ! 



L' ENVOI 

A HUNDRED buds into blossoms grew ; 
The blight killed some ere the night wind blew; 
Some lingered and gained but an ill repute ; 
One only came to the perfect fruit. 

A hundred seeds from the branches fell ; 
How many were lost 1 can not tell ; 
Some throve for a while and were fair to see ; 
One only grew to the perfect tree. 

I flung to the air some songs of mine ; 
And little I cared for the ninety and nine ; 
I thought of the one that might descend 
And flourish, perchance, in the heart of a friend. 



174 



Jan - 8 1901 



DEC 31 1961 



Ill 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



018 602 607 A 



